Under Your Bed, In Your Closet, In Your Head
by That was HOT
Summary: "The epic love story of Sam and Dean" Warnings for schmoop, angst, gratuitous F-words, dubcon, Idjits, and terrible parenting. Just consider all warnings possible on this crazy thing and we will both be safe, okay?
1. TEASER

**TEASER  
Never be the people in the first 5 minutes.**

Justine breathed in the iron rich scent of blood on the night air as she swung open the door to the rooftop. There were spatters on the ground that glistened like dropped rubies.

"Juliane!" her screams felt muffled as if she were yelling the name through water. "Where are you?"

Every time she thought she was closing in, her sister's voice would come from even further away. She had chased it up twelve floors, and there was finally nowhere else for them to go. She wound her way around the columns, air conditioners, and other obstacles in her way until the roof took on the feeling of a maze, like she might as well have been running in place.

Above the sound of her heart's wild pounding in her ears, she heard her sister call out to her again. Her eyes searched frantically in front of her until they finally landed on Juliane's form at the end of the building. She was silhouetted against the night's sky by all the lights from the city beyond, facing forward on the ledge of the rooftop, teetering, twelve stories up. Her dark hair waved out around her in the wind that rushed up from the streets below.

"I can't do it anymore!" Juliane wailed, as blood began to leak from her eyes. Her body was covered in wounds as if a wild animal had ravaged her. A superficial slice appeared across her neck in front of Justine's stunned eyes. An unseen force continued to cut down her sister's chest as she ran towards her.

She was not sure how she would fight something she couldn't see, but she'd rather die trying.

"Stay strong!" Justine cried, reaching her sister. Thrusting her hands out, she grabbed hold of the bottom of her skirt. Her sister let out a sob and flung herself backwards, wrenching the material from her grasp as she plummeted off the roof.

Justine dropped to her knees and screamed.

There was a dark laugh behind her. "Again!" the voice rasped.

She suddenly found herself sitting at a table in their home, across from Juliane.

Justine grabbed her sister's arms and pulled her in close, desperate to hold on this time. She felt a wet warmness against her fingers. Her sister's arms were slit open from elbow to wrist, blood gushing out all over the table between them.

"Why won't it end?"


	2. That Noise You Heard

Laughter woke Sam. It was a humorless cold laugh, which was quickly matched by the growling of his brother. Dean was muttering something in reply in a serious, you are about to get your ass kicked tone. Sam strained to hear the words but couldn't make out more than a "no" and a "kill". Doors slammed repeatedly as Sam finally and very slowly managed to crack open an eye. Just getting his one eyelid to rise involved a surprising amount of effort. He watched as Dean's jean clad bowed legs paced back and forth in the space between their two beds. Sam had to struggle to get his body to move at all; even following the movement of Dean's pacing made his eyes lag. After another minute he got his head to turn and he glanced up as his brother walked by for the dozenth time. Both of Dean's hands were pulling at his short hair, his brow furrowed, his green eyes wild in… _was that panic? _

Upon seeing Dean's expression, adrenaline shot through Sam and he bolted upright, his head beginning to swim. He flopped back down onto his back, sparing himself from a black out. Everything in his head felt fuzzy, thick, like a seriously bad whiskey and Jager hangover. He groaned.

"Dean?"

Where were they, what had happened, why was Dean looking so freaked? Sam's mouth didn't seem to be working any better than the rest of him, as none of the words were actually making it past his lips.

His logical mind clicked on and tried to retrace his steps in order to answer his own questions. There was a hunt, _there was always a hunt_, and it had gone well. No, not well, seriously not well and then… everything after that thought was in fog. He was sprawled out on the scratchy comforter of a motel bed, staring up at a watermarked motel ceiling. The starburst clock hanging over the kitschy wallpaper near the bed ticked quietly, the only noise in the room. He squinted until he could see that the hands of the clock read one twenty-four. He wasn't even sure if that was am or pm. At least he wasn't tied up and being threatened by some demon as was often the case when he had awoken groggily like this in the past.

Sam ran a hand down his smooth face, over the blue flannel shirt on his chest and along his stomach. Nothing hurt, he didn't feel injured, he didn't even feel sore. The only real notion he felt at all, as he looked back up at Dean, was relief–happiness even. He realized, despite the fuzzy head, that he felt better than he had felt in days. That was because it had been days since he had seen Dean. No, that wasn't true, he had seen him, he had been seeing him every waking moment and yet…

Then the thought came to him that it had been days since Dean had seen _him_. But that didn't make any sense. His mind was trying to put the puzzle pieces together but nothing was fitting.

Dean's face came back into view in that instant. He was in an absolute panic, and Dean Winchester did not panic. Sam knew this had to be bad.

"Dean? What's wrong? What's happening?" Sam finally managed to string the words together and tried to sit up again, but only made it as far as propping himself up on his elbows. Dean's only reply was to back away from the bed. Sam eyed him up and down, looking for injuries, looking for blood. He had on his leather jacket and his favorite worn-in black tee, which was typical Dean attire and didn't help jog any memories in his head about what happened, or even what day it was. Hell, he didn't even know what month it was. There were no signs Dean was hurt, however. No bleeding wounds, no bullet holes, and that made Sam calmer. Sam patted the bed next to him, trying to get Dean to come sit down, take a breath, and tell him what was happening.

Dean took another step back away from him and hugged his arms around himself, the muscles in his jaw flexing as if he was chewing on his fear. Sam exhaled, "Calm down. Whatever this is, we will figure it out." Dean turned away to face the motel door as if he hadn't heard him.

"Just stop. Please leave."

He started his pacing again, this time in front of the bolted and chained door, looking much like an agitated tiger in a cage. There was a faint noise from outside and his eyes started flying between Sam and the door. He suddenly turned towards it, bracing his whole body against it, pushing. His body tensed with effort, clearly terrified. Seeing Dean like this got the blood pumping, and Sam was up and off the bed an instant later.

"What do you mean leave?" he asked, those words finally hitting his foggy feeling head.

He took the few short strides from the bed furthest from the door and braced his hands above Dean's, pushing with him against it. Dean's face was white when he looked over his shoulder at Sam, his freckles jumping out in stark contrast to his drained skin. Sam pressed hard against the door but didn't feel anything pushing back at them, nor did he sense anything on the other side. Another minute ticked by with nothing happening. He leaned towards the window, moving the dusty mauve curtains aside with one finger and took a quick look outside.

An empty motel parking lot is all he saw.

"Dude, there isn't anything out there. What is going on?"

He didn't answer or stop pushing against the door. An overwhelming urge came over Sam as he watched Dean. He needed to pull him into his arms, he had to feel that he was alive and okay. Something had happened and though he couldn't remember what, he needed to hug his brother, all teasing later that he was a girl be damned. He threw his arms around Dean from behind him, pressing in for that contact, that confirmation that he was really with him.

Dean tugged himself away out of his grasp, and swung his body around tensing. "Go away!" Dean snapped, his eyes still wild. Sam stepped back, his heart clenching tight at the sight of him acting like this. Dean Winchester was going out of his mind, in absolute fear, and somehow it was Sam causing it. He didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry. I'm just real happy to see you up and around, that's all."

Dean turned back and leaned against the door again. Unsure of what else he should be doing, Sam put his hands back up against the door too and pushed with him.

"Go away," he whispered this time.

"How can I leave Dean? You're blocking the door."

Sam didn't know what was happening, but more than willing to go if it would calm Dean down and give him a second to think.

"Go away."

"Okay, okay man, I'll go, just..."

Dean leaned his head up against the door. "Please."

It finally registered that Dean wasn't even talking to him but was instead whispering, pleading through the door to whomever or whatever waited on the other side.

"Saaam," a deep voice on the outside of the door groaned, as if on cue. It thumped up against the wood of the door, shaking it under Sam's pushing hands. Now it was Sam's turn to wear the wild-eyed expression his brother had been wearing since he awoke. _The voice on the other side of the door…was that? How could…how could that be?_ Nothing was making sense. "Sammy!" the voice called again, this time full of urgency and in a voice most distinctively _Dean_.

Beneath his brother's pushing shoulder and his own hands, the once standard beige motel door began to turn an inky black. It shimmered with curls of color that looked somewhere between smoke and paint as it spread up and around the door, staining it until the whole thing was as pitch black as demon eyes. Even the door knob was a shining shade of pure onyx. The thought that jumped into his mind then was that the door looked like a portal straight to hell.

"What is this?" Sam asked. He could feel the change in the door under his hands but he continued to push with Dean. The door grew hot and slithery under his palms and he couldn't help but to finally pull away from it. He took a step back from the sight, dread filling his chest, as his eyes scanned the room for weapons. But he saw nothing of any use, no duffle bags, no guns, no salt.

Before Sam could say anything else, Dean launched himself off and away from the door, snagging Sam's arm as he went passed and pulling him around with him. Sam could hear the door creak open behind them, a gruff laugh accompanying it.

Dean threw the both of them across the room and to a wall, where there was a line of at least 10 doors. There were so many doors Sam couldn't get an accurate count in the split second he had to consider it. Before he had another full second to ponder how a motel room could possibly have so many exits, Dean wrenched open a door in the middle and pushed him through, following close behind, yelling out a line of curse words at whatever was trailing only a step or two in their wake…

Had Sam blacked out?

He found himself no longer standing, but instead sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala. He felt the warm vinyl of the seat under the palm of his hand. He could smell the oil and takeout, and his brother, the scents that he always associated with the car. Road signs were flying past so fast he couldn't make out what they said, didn't know where they were.

"Sam, listen. I get why you are here but I need you to go," Dean said calmly as Sam snapped his head in the direction of the sudden voice.

Dean kept his eyes on the road. He seemed at ease now, one hand on the wheel, the other fiddling with the radio like his normal laidback self. He turned the volume up and one of his favorite Led Zeppelin songs came pouring out of the speakers.

…_She said, "You might get hurt if you don't keep it hid"_…

He smiled and nodded along, leaving Sam more confused than ever.

"Go? Go where? Am I… dreaming?" Sam shook his head, everything still feeling hazy. "I don't understand what's happening."

"Obviously," was all Dean replied continuing to listen to the song as he began to tap his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat. He seemed calmer the more it played on.

"Tell me what the heck is going on?"

Dean glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "You are inside my head," he stated plainly, "and you need to get out."

"I'm in your _what!_?"

"You're in my fucking grapefruit, Sam. I told you not to come and I need you to go now, okay? It isn't safe."

"But..."

Sam put a hand on Dean's arm, rolling the leather of his jacket between his fingers. It all seemed real, felt real. Before he could speak another word, he heard a voice come from the back seat. "Sam!" which matched the same "Sam!" coming from his brother's own lips next to him.

Dean jerked the wheel before Sam could even turn his head. Everything was screeching to a halt and then Dean flew at him from across the bench seat, wrenching open his door and shoving him out.

…_Squeeze it so hard, I'll fall right out of bed_…

…and Sam was thrown backwards towards the ground.

His back suddenly bumped up against…the wooden bar? He turned, looking around, once again baffled. There were civilians laughing, the smell of stale beer in the air, and a surly, balding bartender leaning in. "Let me see some ID, kid." No Impala, no road. They were now in a crowded bar. A bar he recognized actually, a _time,_ he recognized.

A disoriented Sam fingered his fake ID out of his wallet and handed it over. He had barely turned sixteen when he was last in this particular bar, but his ID stated 21. He was tall enough to pull it off fairly well if it was a dim enough dive and they didn't look too hard at him–or okay just didn't care–but he always held his breath when he handed the ID over. He was well past the carding stage now, and the absurdity of him holding his breath made it come out in a rushing laugh. He turned away from the bar and saw the cocky as ever 19-year-old Dean send a wink his way from across the room.

Dean bent over the pool table, cue in hand, and sunk the last ball with ease. He grinned from ear to ear as he snatched up the cash that had been sitting on the edge of the table. The small crowd that had been watching him parted, a few slapping him on the back as he made his way past.

Sam remembered this night.

This was the night Dean had hustled pool so well that he made enough money for the both of them to eat, stuff themselves really, for the rest of the month. Dad had told them he'd be back weeks ago, like he so often promised in the past. And just like the times before this, the credit card finally got flagged, and the meager cash ran out. They didn't have a whole lot to eat the week before, and Dean was always teasing Sam that his legs had to be hollow.

Dean sauntered toward Sam, somehow charming the whole room with every step, in the way only a Winchester could. He was so proud he practically beamed, a mix of relief and happiness all over his face. Sam smiled at the sight. He remembered that night, and the days that followed because Dean ate like he might never see food again. He ate until he had to unbuckle his jeans and pat his belly. A satisfied, full Dean had always made Sam smile. Dean grabbed the beer out of Sam's hand that he hadn't even realized he was holding and took a long swig. Dean was fresh-faced here with none of the hardness around the edges that he always wore in his expression nowadays.

He handed the beer back with a grin. "I'm trying to keep us in memories and thoughts where I have control, Sam." His words didn't match the smile on his lips. Sam was suddenly snapped out of reveries and remembered what Dean had said in the car. He was inside Dean's head. It all came rushing back.

Sam knew now why he had been so worried.


	3. Dreams of Liars

The real trouble that had landed Sam inside Dean's head started a week back. They were on what they thought would be a typical salt and burn in a small town in Nebraska before something much more sinister reared its ugly head. As is often the luck of the Winchesters.

But Sam knew the events went even further back than that. Less than a month before Nebraska they had been in Dallas, Texas ganking a kitsune...

***

Dean stabbed the kitsune before her claws came fully out. Her fox-like eyes going wide in shock as her body sunk down to the ground next to the car, dead. He removed his knife from the creature's heart with a tug and looked up just as Sam came barreling around the corner of the school gymnasium.

They had finally figured out the killer picking off high school students in the area was a substitute teacher. They stopped her from snacking on the adrenal gland of the only student that was in her Saturday detention, and the creature had fled, with the brothers getting separated in the pursuit.

"Lots of help _you_, were. Where the hell did you go?" Dean asked.

"Thanks for the concern." Sam looked down at the very dead kitsune at their feet.

"What, this bitch? She couldn't have taken you out. But her locking your ass in a closet, yes, that I can believe," Dean joked.

It wasn't far off from the truth. Mrs. Monster managed to lead Sam into the gym and then locked him inside before making a mad dash towards her car where Dean had been crouched, waiting.

Sam didn't have to say anything, Dean was already grinning at him like he read his mind.

Before Dean had the chance to tease Sam, or even wash the blood off his hands, his cell phone rang. His entire demeanor changed in less than a second. He snapped to attention, standing tall, shoulders back. Sam knew who was on the phone without having to ask. It was mostly silence on Dean's end, listening to orders.

"Twenty-one hundred hours. Yes sir."

Dean told Sam about the case on their drive back to the motel. A house in Mississippi, a poltergeist, and a tricky son of bitch by the sound of it. Dean was always excited when their father reappeared for even the briefest of moments in their lives, usually only because he needed backup on a case he was working.

"Gonna come with?" Dean asked.

Sam said he should stay behind and wrap up a few loose ends on their current job. Dean tried a few more times, bribing him with the chance to drive, to even pick the music, but Sam turned it down. Honestly, he just wasn't in the mood for the days of friction around dad.

"All right, pardner," Dean said with a bit of a Texas drawl. "Meet you back at The Saddles and Boots Motel in about five days then."

He grinned, "And Sam…"

Sam quirked an eyebrow, "Yeah?"

"Don't get locked in any closets while I'm gone."

***

The motel door swung open, and there was Dean back from the hunt, two days earlier than Sam expected him. He appeared reckless and wild, blood dripping from his face as he came charging into the room. He looked more battered than Sam could remember seeing him in a long time. He stormed in without a word, threw all their stuff into the Impala without pausing–basically throwing Sam in the car too–before he peeled out of the motel's parking lot without a glance back. He said that he just needed to drive.

"You Okay? What the hell happened? Is Dad alright?" Sam asked. Dean just sunk his foot on the gas.

Sam protested for awhile, saying Dean's injuries needed tending to, but he only got steely silence in reply. Sam looked over the damage. They weren't life threatening wounds, but there was a lot of blood. It leaked from the corner of his mouth, from a slice in his chin and cheek. The blood was weeping down Dean's face, winding trails slowly down his neck and finally soaking into his once gray t-shirt. It was not an easy thing for Sam to sit by and watch, but every word Sam spoke seemed to put his brother more on edge. Dean pulled up the bottom of his shirt and wiped it across his face, trying to soak up some of the blood but mostly smearing it. Sam opened his mouth but Dean flashed him a look that said _shut up or I'll make you shut up. _

After almost an hour of Sam constantly fretting, repeating his questions, his brother finally opened his mouth and spat out _that the hunt they had been on was taken care of and yes, dad was fine, now would Sam please shut up and just let him drive_! They continued on in silence.

The wounds eventually scabbed over some, the blood drying and flaking off Dean's neck just about the time they crossed over the Texas state line.

Every time they drove through another big city, Sam would try once again, suggesting they stop for the night, but got nothing in reply. Sam's stomach growls were equally ignored. They didn't stop for more than gas, which Sam got out and pumped since Dean, covered in blood and rage, looked like a bit of a serial killer. Dean maintained his fuming silence through another two states. Sam did finally manage to get his attention, however, when he could no longer sit still. He shifted in his seat constantly from the pain in his body. All 6'4 of his frame ached from being in the confined space for so long without proper breaks and stretches. When he started wincing every time they hit a bump in the road Dean finally eased up his relentless driving and a look of concern replaced the look of fury that had been there all day.

"Sorry Sammy," he mumbled, the first words he had said in hours. He turned off the highway the first chance he could to look for a motel for the night.

Once they were in the motel room Dean continued to shut down as he always did when things were bothering him. He flopped down on the bed and let his duffle bag drop at his feet.

"It's over," he said, "so don't worry your pretty head about it, Samantha."

Sam sighed, finally resigned to that answer. He knew well enough that if Dean was starting in on the girl names he simply wasn't going to talk about it no matter what Sam did in protest. He did finally get his brother to agree to let him tend to his damaged body. Sam helped him pull his blood soaked shirt up over his head and grimaced when he saw that Dean's upper body matched his face in injuries. Sam got out the kit and other supplies, and then sat on the bed next to him. He washed his face so he could see the damage. The skin around Dean's eye was swollen, as was his left ear, not to mention the cuts. His whole face just looked painful.

Sam felt guilty that he hadn't gone along on the hunt. Maybe he could have helped, prevented this.

Dean downed whiskey all the while Sam was working on him, popping whatever pain medicine he had fished out of his duffle. They were both brooding and silent as Sam carefully cleaned up the scrapes with antiseptics and stitched him closed where he needed it. It took several stitches to close up his chin and left cheek, and Sam worked meticulously at it. Dean started to rush him along, his words beginning to slur together. Sam didn't pay him any attention. He was going to do this slow, right, so Dean wouldn't have scars. Once the stitching was to his satisfaction, he began applying balm to the bruises on his chest to help them heal. Dean's breathing was a little labored as he began, maybe a bruised rib? Luckily, nothing felt broken when Sam ran his hands over the area to check.

"Sam…"

There was a strange tone to Dean's voice that made Sam look up, his fingers still tracing along Dean's ribs.

"Don' bother. I'ma take a bath." The tone was gone, the drunken slur remained. Dean stood to head to the bathroom.

He stumbled as he took the first few steps forward, then stumbled again, and Sam caught him before he made it all the way to the floor. He wasn't sure if it was the combination of exhaustion, pills and liquor or the pain was just bad enough, but Dean let Sam help him to the bathroom. He didn't even put up a fight as Sam got down on his knees to untie his boots and pull them off. He didn't bellyache when he helped to peel him out of his bloody jeans, or when he took his amulet off and set it on the bathroom counter. He did however start up as Sam slung Dean's arm around his shoulder and helped him step into the tub.

"Alright. Enough. I can bathe my damn self."

Dean tried to drunkenly push his hands away, cuffing Sam's ear when he ignored him. Sam was tempted to just drop his ass into the tub, but instead he eased him into the warm water slowly. He wasn't interested in starting the fight Dean seemed to be itching for.

While Sam was kneeled at the side of the bathtub he couldn't help but look over his brother's chest and sides and their livid, already purple bruising. Dean must have seen the look of real concern on his face, as he shot back with an eye roll, "I'm fine," and momentarily returned to his normal mischievous self by splashing bathwater right up into Sam's worried face.

"Jerk!" Sam stood and wiped his eyes, but felt a little better since Dean was obviously okay enough to be acting up.

"Bitch," Dean mumbled with almost a half smile as he let his eyes fall shut and leaned his head against the tub wall. Sam sighed and left Dean to soak in both the water and the whiskey.

The tension never left Dean that night, not while he ate the takeout Sam ordered like he was eating cardboard, not even when he finally dozed off in the bed across from him. Sam could make out the grimace that remained, hardening all his features, even in the dark.

He wished he could help, but Dean never let him get close enough to know what was going on in his life, let alone in his head. He knew that was partly his own fault, having left Dean when he went off to college, not even calling him after he was gone. They had been back on the road together for awhile, but Dean kept that distance between them now. Funny how they could practically live in each other's back pockets and yet still hardly know one another when it came down to it. That thought made Sam sad for all new reasons. He tried to turn his mind off as he rolled over and attempted to follow his brother into sleep.

***

Over the following days with nothing but brooding silence, Sam had plenty of time to mull things over. He briefly considered calling their father, not that he'd pick up, but figured if Dean found out it would only piss him off further. He finally settled on the fact that the hunt his father and brother had been on must have gone wrong. Maybe dad had finally gotten under Dean's skin the way he had always managed to get under Sam's. Perhaps Dean had screwed up for once and Dad had ripped him a new one over it. Dean was always seeking their father's approval after all, and their father was such an obsessed bastard that he hardly noticed what his careless words did to Dean. He just barked orders and expected perfection. It was a likely scenario.

But this had to be on another level. Something major must have gone down on the hunt, as Dean was downright scary with the anger that was rolling off him. Not to mention the amount of hunter's helper he was throwing back started to reach alarming levels. He was at a consistent level of drunk for days.

It didn't ease up for weeks. Dean would suddenly claim he hated the motel they were in, or that he wanted food from a place five towns over so they might as well switch where they were staying. Sometimes he simply said he needed to drive. Sam didn't resist the moving about as it seemed to calm Dean down, so he'd just pack his duffel and follow. It kept up like that all the while Dean was healing, and it didn't seem to get better until they finally found a new case to head out to. Sam was worried, but Dean just insisted they hit the road and follow up on a lead Bobby had told them about that pointed to something nasty happening in the town of Broken Bow, Nebraska. People were vanishing from their beds in the middle of the night. Dean hadn't been a hundred percent yet but Sam let him talk him into it anyway. He shouldn't have. He knew something was off with Dean and that both their heads wouldn't be in it.

One unnatural fiend put down in Nebraska later and Dean seemed to improve.

Something felt off to Sam, but after the hunt life had carried on for a day or two better than normal, so he decided not to question things. It was all Dean, cheeseburgers, and shared laughs. In fact, they talked and joked with ease and Sam felt closer to Dean than he had in, well, years actually. Dean was even talking about taking a break, maybe a vacation. They talked about all the places they'd like to see, Dean nixing the idea of Hawaii because it involved a plane ride, but agreeing that a stay near the beaches in California would be nice.

Sam figured Dean just needed to blow off steam, which the hunt had helped with, and left it at that. That was until Bobby showed up at a seriously inopportune time...

***

Dean was out on another dinner run. Sam was alone and had stumbled upon the skin channel just as it announced, "Up Next, Casa Erotica Four". He figured he had enough time before Dean got back to… release some tensions. He watched the show for awhile from the corner of the bed, then leaned back and stretched out, unzipping his jeans and pulling them down to his thighs. He ran a hand up his semi-interested shaft and looked back at the show.

Bobby's shocked face was not the next thing Sam had expected to see during his private happy alone time!

The older hunter had suddenly appeared at the foot of the bed, between Sam and the TV. Sam squawked and bolted off the motel bed using one hand to try to cover himself while the other was wrestling to get his jeans back up. Bobby diverted his eyes.

Before he could ask what the hell was happening, how Bobby had just appeared out of thin air in the motel room, Bobby hollered out "Boy! Can't you tell what is reality and what is a damn dream after last time you were poking around in _my_ noggin?"

Sam stared at him for a moment, still zipping up, not getting it. Bobby said plainly that Sam was in his own head dreaming, and if he wouldn't mind waking the hell up now, that would be just great.

They went on the hunt but hadn't put down the monster–it had put _them_ down. Sam was under some spell, asleep.

When he and Dean had followed the lead into the small Nebraskan town and heard about the vanishing townsfolk and the way the doors were all locked from the inside, their first thought had been malevolent sprit. They soon got a look at a few of the bodies in the morgue that had been discovered dumped at the Broken Bow Township Cemetery. The bodies were all ripped into and half eaten, and the coroner's official report said animal attack. Sam and Dean however figured they were dealing with a particularly nasty but smart ghoul. When they busted into the cave that they finally tracked the beast to, and saw the victims strung up still alive but knocked out cold, they figured that it must have been a Djinn instead. Okay, they honestly had no fucking idea what the thing was.

Before they had a chance to form a plan B or C or D, or just get the hell out of there, the unknown monster came at them from the darkness. They both got in plenty of well aimed shots, silver bullets, rock salt, and Dean even whipped a knife at the massive shadowy figure. But the thing didn't slow.

It turned out it wasn't a ghost, ghoul or Djinn, but as Bobby had told him, it was a Sandman. Which would explain the freaking dirt it had thrown at Sam's face at the time!

Everything had been a dream inside Sam's head, ever since they entered the cave in Nebraska. He was mad with himself that he hadn't realized it, hadn't figured it out. That would also explain why Dean suddenly seemed so pleasant, because it wasn't really Dean. Sam had dreamed up a fake, happier brother. And didn't Sam just need another giant heap of guilt in his life?

Sandmen were beyond rare, many hunters even thought them extinct, and just like most other "nice" storybook creatures they were evil as all hell. They would put their victims to sleep using a mix of ancient herbs, sands obtained from very particular areas of desert, and old magic. They tossed the mix into the eyes of their victims which would send them right into a deep and almost impossible-to-wake-from sleep. The Sandman would feed off them slowly by entering into their minds. Like a grey matter happy meal.

First, they would feed on their victim's dopamine by inducing pleasant happy dreams, sometimes even getting some oxytocin, the love hormone, if it could induce erotic visions in their head. Eventually it would cause the most horrific nightmares it could draw from its victim's subconscious, haunting them with whatever secrets or fears they had locked away. It would thus switch to feeding off the norepinephrine, a kind of adrenaline.

When the victim finally began to die, usually of a heart attack from fear but sometimes simply from giving up, the Sandman would rip out their eyes officially severing the link. Then it would set about gnawing on any parts of the body that looked particularly tasty, sometimes while the person was still crying out their last dying screams.

After some hard concentration and a few spell breaking chants Bobby had quickly taught him, Sam managed to wake himself from the forced sleep. He opened his eyes to the darkness of the cave. Once he was fully awake it was obvious to see that reality felt nothing like that dream. It was sharper, more real. He still sat in the darkness and pinched himself a few times to make himself feel better. He waited as Bobby had instructed, listening, trying to keep calm, waiting for them to make their way inside the cave to find him.

"Dean," Sam whispered into the darkness but got no reply.

After what felt like forever waiting alone in the dark, he saw lights coming toward him. "Here," he said just loud enough that they would hear him. Bobby and four other hunters he didn't recognize were at his side and all of them wearing gasmasks. He could see as the flashlights danced over him that he had been lying amongst several other "frozen dinners"–people that would need woken up when everything was over.

Looking through all the sleeping bodies he realized Dean was nowhere in sight, and fear raced through him. "Dean's alive," Bobby said knowing what Sam's first thoughts would be once he was back to reality. "But I couldn't get into his head to wake him up, so he is still out cold somewhere." Sam stood up, letting that news and the accompanying adrenaline move his sore, stiff body into action. There would be plenty of time to be scared shitless later. Right now, there was a monster that seriously needed its ass kicked.

Bobby quickly introduced the other hunters and filled Sam in on the plan. He handed him the weapon of choice: an Ojo de Dios, roughly similar to a dream catcher in appearance, but one that had been sanctified in blood and attached to the end of the handle of a very sharp blade. Luckily, Bobby just happened to have a few because as he said, "Hello, Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard." Bobby slipped a gasmask over Sam's head to protect him from getting another shot of sand to the face, and clipped a flashlight to his shirt, which he flicked on. The six hunters made their way further into the cave to face the Sandman.

It didn't take them long to find it. They rounded a corner and walked into the biggest cavern they'd seen so far, and there it just sat dead center, crouching on the floor facing away from them, chanting. There were lit candles and alters around the massive cavern, and the unmistakable smell of death was thick in the air. The second Sam took a step forward the Sandman turned towards them. The flashlight beams bounced off of its dark form as it rose up to its full towering height. It seemed to float away from the floor as it moved, its tattered black clothing and long hair seemed to wave out from it and towards the group of hunters, as if immune to gravity. It was much too large to be a normal man even though its face was eerily human. It pointed at Sam with a long, sharp talon-like finger on the ends of which several human eyes were speared.

Its voice sounded straight out of nightmares, guttural and deep with a wet rasp at the end of each word as it said, "Only the dead trespass here, hunter."


	4. It's Just the Beast

Bobby held the Ojo de Dios out in front of himself as the hunters circled in on the beast.

"I should have killed you quickly," the sandman reflected, "But his eyes are the most sublime I've ever seen…the darkness behind them just beautiful."

Sam had no doubt the monster was talking about Dean and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He walked forward straight at the beast with the other hunters following his lead. Bobby stood behind them and started the chant, "Jam tibi impero et præcipio maligne spiritus! E tenebris, Terra es, terram ibis…"

The Sandman shrieked, its deathly pale face contorting in agony and the ground began to shake under their feet.

"You dare try to bind _me_?"

Sam swallowed hard, throwing a glance at Bobby, but the old hunter didn't even pause. He just recited the next line in the chant. Suddenly, the dirt from the floor of the cave started rising, floating, swirling as the room rumbled on. The sand began to move faster, whipping up in great torrents until a sandstorm formed around them.

Bobby got out the next line of the chant, hollered it above the thundering noise, as two of the men they were with went running in toward the monster from both sides. The Sandman swung to face them, throwing up its arms, while the sand in the room obeyed its command and flew at them. The sand pummeled them backwards until they were kneeled to the floor.

"Ecce quomodo Moritur!" Bobby continued chanting and the Sandman howled. The monster raised his arms toward the ceiling, alerting Sam on what it was planning to do. He charged in its direction, battling the rage of sands, hoping to make it in time. He got just close enough as the thick wall of sand went up, sealing around them both completely, from cavern floor to ceiling. The wall of sand effectively blocked everything and everyone else on the other side, including the final line of the binding spell. It was just Sam and the monster now.

The Sandman let out a growl, holding up its hands, and sending sand whipping at Sam. It stung his skin as it pushed him back, forcing him against the wall of earth behind him, pushing so hard he began to sink back into it like it was quicksand. The sand swirled continuously around the mask he was wearing, trying to find a way in. Sam fought and pulled himself out off the wall, straining and battling for each inch of progress. The Sandman struck his fist forward, and the sand balled up tight and battered against Sam's body so hard it knocked the wind out of him and drove him to his knees.

He tried to pull himself up before he even had his breath back but the sand pressed heavy on him, keeping him bowed. He gasped in a breath as his air returned, except instead of air he huffed in a big lung full of herb scented sand. He saw the tiny crack in his mask the sand was coming through, grain-by-grain, filling up the bottom of his mask as he sputtered and coughed. The monster drew a symbol in the air with his bloody talons, which formed solid in sand and hovered above them both.

"Pulvis et umbra sumus! Dormite, hostes mei, ubi statis!" The netherworld voice called out and the symbol glowed red, "A slumber so deep you'll never wake!"

Sam felt sleep surge up and grip him then. Darkness was pulling him under. His eyelids began to fall with the monster's sleep spell upon him. The last thing he saw before his eyes fell shut were the rows of sand-made spikes that were forming above him. The monster crowed in victory.

And Sam thought of Dean.

Sam raised up the Ojo de Dios he was still clutching, his eyes closed, and coughed out the final line of the binding spell, "Hoc sustinate Damnosa hereditas."

The beast let out a bloodcurdling scream and the spikes above fell, quickly turning back into regular sand, raining down on the fallen Winchester. The Sandman was bound to him, his magic useless. Sam coughed, recovering his breath as he rose to his feet. The creature's pale glowing eyes were on him as he stalked closer.

"I own your ass!" Sam spat.

The Sandman sneered but made no other movements, still towering over him.

"Is Dean still alive?"

"Yeees," The monster seethed against his will.

"How many people besides the hunters are still alive in these caves?"

"Seventeen."

Taken aback by that number, how many victims the Sandman had been torturing, made his anger flare.

"Wait!" it implored as Sam took a step closer to it, "I've seen inside his head, his dreams, down into all those black places where he hides his miseries. I know what you want to know."

Sam paused mid step.

"If you only..."

But he didn't make deals.

"Time for you to sleep." He swung his arm forward and got in the one and only blow with the blade before the monstrosity had a chance to say another word, lopping its head clean off in one smooth strike. He had done it quickly and the thing collapsed before it had a chance to cry out. Blood sprayed from its body as it sunk down, mixing with the sand at its feet forming a pool of crimson mud. The wall of sand crashed down behind him as the monster's body dropped, and he could hear Bobby and the others calling out and running towards him. Lights danced over the room as they got closer.

Then Sam saw Dean. He was laid out on a low alter, half buried under sand at the feet of the creature's now headless slumped body. Sam wasn't a violent person by nature, but he hoped to god that the Sandman felt a little pain before it died.

Sam dropped his mask on the ground and knelt beside his brother pulling him into his arms, sand falling off him like a blanket.

Dean's pulse was steady under Sam's fingers. He was alive, though he looked pallid and feverish. Sam chanted the spell into his brother's ear that Bobby had told him should wake him. He said it might not work, but Dean wouldn't refuse Sam. On the second try with the chant, he stirred and gasped as he opened his eyes wide locking immediately on to Sam's. He grabbed onto his shoulder and pulled him close.

"You're safe," he said a puff of sand coming out with his raw voice.

"I'm safe, you're safe," Sam repeated. He wiped as much sand off his brother as he could, a cloud of it drifting off when he patted his hair.

Dean pulled him in so close then that their noses were almost touching, "Don't come after me, Sam." He looked at Sam as if the message made perfect sense. "Don't come…you have to leave me…" his voice trailed off as his eyes began falling back into the shadows of dreams. Dean began murmuring strangely under his breath and went limp in Sam's arms. "Dean? Dean!" he called shaking him, but got no response.

"What the hell was that?" Sam said, looking up over his shoulder at Bobby. But the older hunter shrugged and shook his head. Sam tried the chants again, but Dean stayed asleep this time. Sam didn't know what else to do, so picked Dean up and slowly made it to his feet. The other hunters offered their help, suggesting Sam should take it easy for a while, but he refused.

"The thing said there were seventeen people still alive in here, a lot of them may be waking up now. They will be scared and confused. You guys have to find them all, get them out of here safely," he said, setting them to their task.

He made the long walk back to Bobby's truck, his legs shaking from exhaustion and the weight of his brother in his arms. He slid Dean into the seat of Bobby's blue tow truck, then climbed in and sat next to him. He slung an arm around Dean, and let his brother's head rest against him.

Bobby had gone back in to ensure that the monster's body was burned because Sam insisted on knowing it was done. Exhaustion finally caught up to him, so he waited and held on to Dean. He watched as many of the victims were ushered outside. He counted them as they came out, eleven so far. There were men, women, even children. Some of them were clinging to their loved ones, some of them were barely clinging to life.

One particular woman approached Bobby's truck, her arms slung around the dazed pale body of a dark-haired woman in her mid-twenties . Sam opened the door to see what he could do to help, but didn't move as he was still tightly holding on to Dean.

"They said you killed it," she said weakly.

Sam nodded.

She leaned forward into the truck, still holding up the other woman, and kissed Sam on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said, the tears welling up in her eyes.

Sam rarely had people thank him. A stunned smile was his only response.

"This is my sister," she said, motioning to the other woman who didn't look up.

From a quick glance, Sam couldn't see any wounds on the outside. But he knew that didn't mean there weren't some gaping emotional ones inside. They both shared a sad smile, knowing that things were far from over, but at least it was good to be alive for today. The other woman suddenly raised her head up and met Sam's gaze, appearing strangely familiar to him. For a fleeting moment, Sam thought they might have known each other in a past life.

She swiftly pulled away from her sister, throwing her arms around Sam's neck and giving him an earnest hug. She whispered rapid thank yous in his ear. He put an arm around her quivering shoulder, "It's gonna be okay," He assured her.

"Come on, Juliane," The other woman said leading her sister away, towards the cars that would take them back into town.

Seventeen people would live, people who would have died if the hunters hadn't come. The smell of smoke drifted through the air. Sam took a deep breath and tried to enjoy the victory but it was a bittersweet win, his concern for Dean overshadowing everything.

***

It was a five hour drive back to Bobby's house, so they had plenty of time to talk. Dean was still unconscious. They briefly discussed taking him to a hospital, but they both felt it wouldn't be much use. Outside of a gushing wound, when had doctors ever helped anyway? It would only make it harder to try out their other, less conventional, options.

Bobby told him about everything that lead up to him waking up in the cave. Said that when they had failed to check in, and wouldn't answer his calls, he knew things had gone wrong and that he ought to get to town as quick as he could. He had picked up the trail of them half a day in. After looking over the boy's research left back at the hotel, he realized pretty quickly what he was dealing with. There were signs that it had been a Sandman to start with, like the fact that the eyes had been missing from every single corpse, or the fact that the town was directly next to the famous Sand Hills of Nebraska.

If Dean hadn't been so distracted and Sam so concerned about him, they probably would have picked up on it sooner and avoided this whole mess.

Once Bobby knew what he was dealing with he knew how to reach the boys. He called in a few favors for some of the other hunters to join him knowing he'd need help. He hadn't wanted to risk them both by trying to take the Sandman out first. He thought it would be wiser if they were awake for the action, in the very least so they wouldn't be in the way and getting themselves killed. He used the last bit of African dream root that Bela had given them, and he had managed to get into Sam's head to help wake him up.

"I tried Dean first actually," Bobby confessed, "But it was like a locked cage. I couldn't get it to spring and let me in for the life of me." Then Bobby shook his head, "It's just… the thing is dead. If that was what was preventing me from getting in, Dean should have come out of it when you took its head off. All the other folks woke up, walked outta there."

Sam just nodded and tried to push the negative thoughts out of his mind for the time being. Dean had to be ok, it couldn't end like this.

Sam tended to Dean and settled him in as comfortably as he could make him. He researched until the words on his computer screen blurred and his hands were shaky from the caffeine. Nothing turned up on why Dean wasn't waking. None of the lore about Sandmen pointed to any logical answers on why he was still in comaland. They tried all the chants Bobby had found repeatedly. They even tried out any others that were even remotely related to breaking sleep spells. They didn't get more than some slight eye movement under Dean's closed lids in response.

The only other option was to keep trying to get into his mind for a little dreamwalking. It took another day of researching and then a lot of bargaining with some fairly shady people, but eventually more African dream root was on its way. It didn't arrive for two days, and that had given Sam plenty of time to fret. He worried because Dean had told him not to follow. What would he do if the dream root didn't work? If Dean's mind kept him out like it had Bobby? He hardly slept, keeping vigil over Dean, having one sided conversations throughout the night.

"Don't do this to me Dean, you let me in, ok? You let me in."

***

"You sure about this?" Bobby asked holding the jar full of root the following day. "We have no idea what's happening or what is crawling around in your brother's head, there may be a reason he said not to follow him in."

"It's Dean, Bobby. He'd come for me."

Bobby sighed. "Okay then." He knew better then to stand in the way of the brothers. There was no talking those two fools outta' anything when it came to what they were willing to do for one another.

"When I took my stroll through your head, the combo of dream root and sandman mojo was pretty powerful. I told the fellas' I was with if I hadn't come out in fifteen minutes, to start up the chants to break the sandman spell. That is what they ended up having to do. I couldn't get myself back awake. That means you won't be able to wake yourself up from the inside either, I'll have to do it from out here. Dean should be able to wake up with just the chants being said from inside hopefully, so if I see Dean wake up of course I'll just pull you out then too. But, if for some reason he don't…"

"He will," Sam said resolutely.

"Ok son, how long you want me to leave you under for?"

"As long as possible."

Bobby advised Sam to sleep first before he went inside Dean's head, that it would make his mind too slow on the uptake if he wasn't well rested himself. But it had been three days since Dean had closed his eyes, and Sam had to do this now. He cut a few hairs from Dean's head as was required for the stuff to work, and put them in his mouth. He chased it with the foul root tea.

But there it was, that explained the fuzzy logic, the confusion when he first opened his eyes and found himself inside Dean's mind.

He could almost hear Bobby muttering choice phrases at him for not listening...


	5. Under Your Bed

**THEN:**

Teaser of people getting tortured by an unseen force- Sam wakes confused, Dean tells him he is inside his head, and he needs to get out- Retelling of the events that transpired previously - Sam and Dean killing a Kitsun, Dean leaves to help their father, returns injured and angry- The boys head to Nebraska to fight evil- Sam thinks they killed it, Bobby appears and tells Sam they didn't kill it, he is under a spell dreaming- Sam wakes up, kicks some Sandman ass, saves the day- Everyone else woke up, but Dean is still asleep and they don't know why- Sam takes some dream root, and ventures into Dean's head to find out…

**NOW:**

"D_eee_an," Sam groaned when he pushed him through yet another door. It was another memory of a day in the family business. Dean let out a satisfied grunt as he sank his blade into the neck of a Nāga, a humanoid-snake creature. He was pulling a dazed but not harmed little girl out of the monster's nest a moment later, and she wrapped herself around Dean's neck. The memory jumped and he was placing her back into the arms of her tearful, joyful mother. Those were the good hunts, the ones that made it worth it.

Once Sam had remembered why he was in Dean's head he explained that he couldn't leave until Bobby pulled him out at a set time with a chant. Dean was up and pushing them through endless doors, claiming they weren't safe if they sat around too long. He was hiding them both in what he deemed "safe places", memories where he felt he had control. Sam told him about the chants, how they woke him up easily before and that they might wake him up too if he'd just try them. Dean just shook his head and kept them moving.

"Dude, come on, stop dragging me around for five seconds and talk to me. I mean, you do understand this is all a dream?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. I'm the one that told you not to follow me in, genius." He tugged Sam along.

"Do you remember what happened? How we got here?" Sam was trying to make sure Dean wasn't suffering from a lack of dopamine or an abundance of adrenaline or other side effects of the Sandman.

"Yeah. A unicorn stabbed me in the ass." Dean kept a completely straight face and then busted out laughing when Sam shot him a worried look. "Sandman, okay? Hell Sam, I'm not crazy."

Sam ruled that out as the cause of his brother's behavior. "Tell me why you won't even try the chants?" Sam was already worried about the time. After all, time inside one's mind might move entirely different than it did in the waking world.

"Just trust me. You just gotta let me sleep." He didn't elaborate. He never did these days.

They approached another wall and Dean scanned the row of doors standing before them. He was trying to decide where to head next. Or in actuality, what to think of next. Sam was finally clear headed, but still found the whole concept of being inside Dean's head, uh, mind bending.

The memories were mostly of Dean winning money, killing evil things, and hitting on women. All things Sam was well familiar with. Occasionally they would drift into a fantasy too, mostly involving Asian cartoons. Sam rolled his eyes and laughed. He always assumed half of Dean's head was porn. Sometimes they would venture into actual dreams, which could get pretty surreal. At one point he watched Dean sending the world's most giant slinky down the world's most giant stairs, only at the end to see that Dean himself was the slinky. He was sure Freud would have loved to analyze that one.

A lot of the memories behind the doors were of Sam though, usually when Sam had been in awe of Dean for something or another. Some of Dean's points of view of him were rather perturbing. Did Sam really slouch that much? Oh god, did he really look like that when he was mad? And ok, maybe Dean was right that he could use a haircut too…

"Come on, help me out here." Sam let himself get dragged towards another door.

"You shouldn't have come, Sam. You have to let me sleep."

Let him sleep, let him sleep! That was all Dean kept saying and Sam was losing his patience.

He smacked Dean in the back of the head, and without missing a beat his brother turned around and punched him in the shoulder.

"Talk to me, Dean!"

Sam found himself in a headlock, getting noogied through the next door.

The memory they walked into next was of the two of them sparring in their younger days. Memory Dean pinned Memory Sam onto his back, Sam eventually getting free but only to be pinned a moment later onto his belly. "Give?" Dean asked. Sam wiggled but Dean just pressed down into him harder, keeping him pinned.

"Of course, you wouldn't play one where I was kicking your ass," Real Sam defended himself.

"Sorry, I have no memories of you _ever_ kicking my ass," Dean cracked back.

"We can make one right now if you'd like. Need me to break a wrist before you finally try one of the chants?" He made a swipe for Dean's arm, but Dean took several steps back, nearly tripping over Memory Sam and Dean as they were once again wrestling on the floor.

Real Sam lunged at him and pushed him down until he was awkwardly sprawled between the Sams. Top Sam pinned both his arms down. Bottom Sam, forgetting all about his memory sparring, suddenly gripped him around the middle. He wrapped his legs over Dean's legs, forcing them to spread until they too were pinned to the floor. Sam and Sam. A Sam sandwich.

"Are you going to cooperate now?" Sam smiled and said the first two words of the chant for Dean to repeat.

The lights in Dean's head flickered, and they both looked at each other.

"Get the hell off me, ginormo!" We are spending too much time—"

The temperature in the room shot up to sweltering. Dean shoved Sam off of him, the both of them getting to their feet just as the light went out completely, plunging the room into darkness.

Before Sam was able to make a crack about Dean not having any bright ideas left, the sound of a door opening and a bemused laugh echoed out around them. It had a twinge of Dean's voice but there was no humor to it, just the gravel and smoke. It sneered right up against Sam in the dark, tickling his ear with warm breath as it whispered out his name. Dean found Sam in the pitch-blackness and grabbed him by the hand and they bolted through another door.

They went flying through dozens of doors, the random flashes of memories almost making Sam dizzy. He saw so many versions of himself in those flashes he started to feel like he was starring in a Sam version of "Being John Malkovich".

The flashes finally stopped, and they were once again in the car. Dean's safest place it seemed. He turned the key and the Impala roared to life. Within an instant, they were flying down some no name backcountry road.

Sam shot off his list of rapid fire concerns. "The thing that is chasing you, is it part of the Sandman from the last hunt? Did he do something to you, say something to keep you in here? Is it a spell?"

Dean just shrugged, turning his attention to the radio. The music was turned up, blasting Metallica. 

…_Tuck you in, warm within, keep you free from sin, till_...

"Come on, if we know what it is then we can find a way to kill it."

"You can't kill it, Sam."

"How do you know?"

"Look, I know this is hard for you to understand. You're just gonna have to trust me."

Sam frowned. He always disliked it when Dean got like this, evasive, never clueing him in. He was growing more like that all the time now. "You sound just like Dad when you say that. I hate it even more coming from you."

Sam was considering all the possibilities. Perhaps the thing had somehow created a link into his brother's head and stayed there, and was haunting him. Maybe he had cursed Dean and he was somehow afraid for Sam's safety, which was a very Dean-like concern. But they had killed it. Sam killed it and watched it die. Bobby burned the body himself. How could anything be lingering? Sam had read the Sandman lore, poured through everything he could find over the three days he was waiting to get into Dean's head. There wasn't anything that said the Sandman could stay in the victim's mind once its body was destroyed.

He leaned up and turned the music down as he always did when they were driving, an unconscious habit. Dean leaned over and turned it back up. Sam turned it down, Dean turned it back up again. Sam turned it down then grabbed the knob and broke it off.

Dean flipped out for a second before remembering they were in his head. "You better be happy this isn't my actual Baby, or I'd pull over and kick your ass."

"Be serious for a minute! I can help you. Whatever it is we can fight it together."

"I don't think so, Sammy."

"Please talk to me. Or if not, let's just try the chants Bobby gave me. See if you can wake up?"

"I'm not going to keep saying it. I can't wake up. You have to leave me here."

"I won't just leave you like this!"

"You do realize we could be using this time on something actually useful, like you know, saying goodbye? Not that you were ever big on those. Usually when you'd go you just up and—"

"I'm not saying goodbye, Dean, because this isn't how it ends." Sam interrupted him folding his arms across his chest, frowning. He knew he looked like a giant defiant twelve-year-old when he did that now, but he didn't care.

"I know this sucks. I've had time to think this over. It is going to suck for me a lot more then it is for you. But you are going to have to learn to live with it because there aren't any other options. So dump my body in some state hospital where the nurses are hot, and just let it be."

"I'm not going to do that!"

"Yes, you will little brother, eventually. Bobby is going to pull you out of my head. You'll realize there isn't a way back in, and when my body starts to get ripe, you'll dump it," he said with a joking tone in his voice.

"Screw you, Dean." Sam was officially pissed off. "For not even trying, for not even attempting to tell me what the hell is going on. You know if it was the other way around there is no way you'd be okay with this."

Neither spoke for awhile. Sam huffed a breath through his nose.

"Yeah. All right, well, I get you're mad at me," Dean said finally. "But while I still have the time I…I just wanted to say, you know, to take care of yourself, okay? 'Cause I'm not gonna' be there to watch out for your sorry ass anymore. So just promise me you'll be careful. You'll stay safe. And if you decide to keep hunting, find a good partner. Or go back to college, Sam. Try for the apple-pie life again." He chewed his bottom lip, and shook his head, like he was internally saying no to the chick flick moments that were welling up.

"And you better take care of my car, too," He patted the steering wheel, "or I'll Freddy Kruger your ass!"

"That's not funny."

"Oh come on, it's a little funny."

Sam said nothing in reply, just sent a bitch face his way.

"Well, you might not like it, but this is the way it is, and I'm saying goodbye. So, bye Sam."

There was silence between them again. Both of them stared straight ahead, lost to their own thoughts. The only sound was the quiet radio playing on undeterred.

…_Never mind that noise you heard, it's just the beast under your bed, in your closet, in your head_…

Dean frowned at the song, and there was a quiet little chuckle from the back seat. He pushed the pouting Sam out of the Impala and through another door before he noticed.

There were very few dreams or fantasies showing up any more. It was mostly memories behind every door they went through, and mostly of their younger days.

Now they were in a memory of some random time of the million times Dean had driven Sam to school. Sam could see the two of them sitting in the car a short distance off, talking. He couldn't remember for the life of him why this day would have stuck out in Dean's mind.

"Why can't we try it, why won't you even try? You have to tell me something more. You can't just leave it like this and expect me to just accept it." Sam said for what felt like the hundredth time already.

Dean was looking all dopey and smiley as he watched the memory them sitting in the Impala, ignoring the real Sam's questions. Young memory Sam had just opened the car door and jumped out heading for the school.

"That was the last time you..." Dean trailed off. His features darkened as he moved away.

Sam turned back at the memory, trying to see what had had that effect on Dean but still couldn't place the day.

The next memory was of their father telling him he could have his old leather jacket, and Dean standing in front of the mirror, totally preening. Sam laughed but then turned serious again.

"Speaking of which, Dad is going to be pissed to hear about you going down without a fight." Sam knew it was a low blow, but nothing else was working. He figured he had to start pushing some of Dean's buttons.

They went through the next door.

The memory was of the three of them sitting out by a lake after a hunt, watching the sunset. Sam remembered this day too, it was peaceful. Their father clapped Dean on the back and handed him a beer, his way of saying he was proud of what Dean accomplished that day. The next doors were more of the same.

"Good job, real good," John said as a young Dean bulls-eyed every one of the targets during practice. If Dean's smile of pride could have been any bigger it would have broken his face in two.

Despite the fact these were good memories, real Dean seemed to be growing agitated. Sam hoped it was because Dean didn't want to disappoint their father, that maybe he'd start to be reasonable now and talk to him. He closed his eyes for a long minute at the next door before opening it.

Dean suddenly looked all of 10 years old. Literally. He tilted his head way up looking at Sam, his green eyes darting around his face as if he didn't recognize him. He ran past Sam, and fell into pace walking with a younger Bobby. Sam followed behind them a bit stunned.

"Where we goin'?" young Dean asked Bobby as he was looking around at the crowds pouring into the big building in front of them.

"Basketball game, Dallas Mavericks."

Dean's eyes got huge and his mouth turned into an excited smile at Bobby's words. Bobby's grin was nearly as big as the boy's, and he hugged an arm around his shoulder. Dean's lips turned down again as he began to worry.

"Dad said I was supposed to do target practice today. He was pretty pissed last time we didn't..." Dean said looking away from Bobby.

"Did he get mad at you?" He asked.

"No," Dean said shaking his head, "but he sure got to yelling at you."

Bobby sighed and patted Dean's shoulder. "Yeah, well I can take it. Listen kiddo, your dad is trying his hardest, but he don't realize what he is doing to y…" He trailed off with a huff. "Sometimes you just have to do things, if you feel they are the right things to do. Some days the whole world will be telling you one thing, and deep in your gut you'll know you should be doing another. Always listen to that voice inside that is telling ya' what is right."

Dean just looked at him for a long minute, thinking it over.

"Right now, my gut is saying that me and you, we could really use a day off."

Dean kicked his shoe against the pavement, hesitating.

"They have foot long hot dogs, soft pretzels…" Bobby changed the subject and Dean licked his lips. "Soda, pizza, nachos… and I'm buyin'." Bobby sent a wink down at Dean and they didn't discuss it further.

Dean was cheering for his new favorite team, a foam finger on one hand and a hot dog he was stuffing into his mouth in the other. He looked to all the world like the happiest kid there ever was. Sam smiled as he stood behind them on the stairs of the stadium watching the memory.

"Come on Dean," he said quietly after awhile, and the young boy glanced over his shoulder at him, mustard still on his face. An instant later full grown Dean was standing by his side again looking sheepish.

"Bobby is right you know. Sometimes you have to do things just because you feel they are the right thing to do."

"And why is _this_ the right thing to do?" Sam asked, gesturing around them.

Dean shrugged, avoiding Sam's glare.

"Bull. The right thing is why I'm here, is why I'm not going to give up until you wake up. Come on Dean, please try?" Sam said, but Dean just made more doors appear. "I can protect myself, if that is what you are worried about. Just stop, let me help. Please?" Sam shot him the most puppy dog look of all puppy dog looks.

Dean almost always gave in whenever he was on the receiving end of one of those pathetic sad-eyed stares that Sam had perfected through the years. He was obviously trying his best to ignore it as he opened one of the three doors in front of him.

The memory they stepped into next was of their younger days too, seriously younger, as a pudgy Sam at about 4 years old came running up to the two of them all excited. He watched as Memory Sam grabbed real Dean's hand and pulled.

"Come on Dee! You pwomised!" he said with the baby puppy eyes staring up at his big brother.

Dean let himself get tugged away. Big moose Sam followed them a few paces behind. When they reached the bedroom, young Sam bolted for the bed, pulled up the covers and then held out a book in his chubby little hands. "The Story of Babar" was written across the front.

Sam remembered then, making Dean read it to him over and over again. The soft look that spread out on his brother's face made Sam suddenly feel like he hadn't really seen Dean in years. These were his brother's happy memories, his safe places. Most of them were silly little moments Sam had forgotten all about. This was a tender soft side of Dean that he kept hidden most of the time, a side of him no one really got to see. Hardly even Sam any more.

Dean sat down on the edge of the bed. "You brush your teeth, Sammy?" he actually asked, and young Sam leaned up and blew his minty breath at his brother. Dean opened the book with a smile. "In the great forest a little elephant is born. His name is Babar," he began and young Sam clapped his hands and kicked his little feet under the blankets.

"Seriously dude, we do not have time for bedtime stories," Sam broke in.

The young him stuck his tongue out at older Sam and Dean sighed gloomily and closed the book.

"We don't need sleep, we need to wake up!" Sam almost laughed when he realized he was yelling at his own mini-self, and then turned it back to Dean. "Just tell me why aren't you even trying? Just explain it to me. Explain something to me. Anything?"

Dean leaned forward and ruffled the young Sam's hair then stood up from the bed. He shoved current day Sam roughly towards another door.

"Answer my question!" Sam yelled, becoming more exasperated with the time they were losing as Dean moved him along. He struggled, trying to pull free of his brother's grasp around his arm. But Sam realized that Dean was stronger than he was while they were inside his mind. It was like Sam himself was a little kid again, getting dragged around by the impossibly bigger, stronger Dean.

How can you care so little about yourself?" He continued pulling against Dean's grasp. "So little that you won't even try?"

"I am, Sam! I'm trying to keep you safe. Keep us both alive. This is the only way."

Dean yanked open yet another door and pulled them both towards it.

"Hey look at me! LOOK at me!" Sam tried to get him to slow down, to look at him, to talk it over, but Dean just pulled him through the door behind him.

The door changed color just as they went through, its exterior turning a dark foreboding gray. Something sinister had been triggered. Dean looked like he was going to be sick, his face flashing back to the wild trapped animal expression. There was nothing he could to do to hold it back.

_"I've seen down into all those black places where he hides his miseries." _The words the Sandman had spoken before he died echoed in Sam's mind.

He braced himself.

To be Continued…


	6. In Your

**In Your**

A young adolescent Dean stormed past them both from the darkness. He looked just as sick and frantic as current Dean.

Everything that lay beyond the gray door was in shadows. It slowly grew lighter around them until Sam could see they were standing in an alley behind an old generic diner in an old generic town.

_"Why don't you smile for me?"_ The voice said in a country-thick accent.

"No, no, no!" Current Dean pulled Sam hard turning him away from the memory before them. But not before Sam saw the truth. Young Dean pushed up against a car, some greasy guy on his knees with his paws all over Dean's belt, a thick wad of cash pushed into his far too young hands. Dean let his jeans fall and mentally checked out of the scene. Sam closed his eyes and joined Dean in his repetitions of 'no.'

_"Look at me. Look at me! Yeah, that's it. That's nice. Now smile,"_ the stranger's horrible voice cooed.

The sudden knowledge, the horror of it, pounded through Sam. _How the hell could he not have known?_ This was long before Dean was old enough to enter bars for pool hustling, before he had become a skilled poker player, and before he mastered the money scams his father taught him. Dad would sometimes be gone for weeks beyond when he said he'd return, the money vanishing too fast… and yet there was always food. Sam had never gone hungry. They never got kicked out of the place they were staying. And just like that, Sam knew. _Gotta protect Sammy._ Dean was selling the only thing he had left.

"Why didn't you tell me? Where the hell was dad? Or Jim or Bobby? I should have known, I could've, I could've—"

"Don't," Dean barely managed to find enough voice to say it.

Sam opened his eyes and looked at him. He saw shame, anger and disgust in Dean's eyes before they darted away to look anywhere but at Sam. He knew Dean was sending all those vicious feelings inwards at himself instead of at the people it really should have been directed at.

Sam hated the nameless man, his father, himself, _the entire fucking world_ for ever allowing something like that happen to someone as kind and good as his brother. His rage flared so intense it made him dizzy. The urge to punch out every person that had ever even looked at Dean, even innocently, became overwhelming.

"When we get out of here I'm tracking that asshole down, and any others, and they're going to find themselves with my bullet between their eyes." Sam meant it.

Dean was trying to think them out of there, trying to find another door. Sam put a hand on his arm and immediately the scene over his brother's shoulder changed. Dean pulled away from him and tried to force the memory away, but his mind refused to budge.

Young Dean was sitting on the sun-faded porch steps of one of their many temporary homes, his legs drawn up, his arms hugged tight around his knees, and curling himself into a ball. Sweat beaded up and trickled down his neck, soaked into his shirt from the warm summer day, but his body shivered like it was the dead of winter.

Having spotted his brother, Young Sam opened the door all smiles as he walked out over the salt line and onto the porch shirtless and barefoot. Dean buried his face deep against his arms and Sam's smile disappeared. He plopped down next to him and put a thin arm around the damp shirt on Dean's back, patting him. "It's okay, Dean. Dad'll be home soon."

Both Deans tensed, the older Dean angry, the younger trying not to cry in front of Sam.

Young Dean dropped one arm down the steps and pulled up the paper bag that was sitting at his feet and held it out to Sam. Sam looked curiously at him, then stood and took it, looking inside. He used the distraction to wipe at his wet eyes.

Sammy sifted excitedly through all the food inside the bag that Dean had bought. Bought with the dirty money people had paid him for a piece of his young virtue.

"I like Lucky Charms!"

"Yeah, I know you do. Save me some this time, piggy," Dean tried to smile, tried to joke. He poked a finger against Sam's bare tummy.

Sam opened his mouth to say something teasing back, but stopped as he looked down into Dean's face. He could see right through the wall Dean was always putting up around his emotions. He saw past it in a way current Sam hasn't been able to do in years. The bag dropped to the floor and Sam fell onto him, arms around his neck. "Don't be sad! I'm here, I'll take care of you. I love you Dean!" Sam hugs him tight. Dean pulls fiercely against him, pulling at that love of Sam, letting it balm his wounds.

A moment later he released Sam and sat up straight, protecting him as he always had, even from the truth.

"I'm fine. Come on, I'll make us dinner."

"Nu-uh. I'm gonna cook you dinner."

And young Dean finally smiled. "You mean you're gonna burn us dinner."

Sammy laughed and their banter resumed, and Real Sam remembered that exact conversation. He always thought it had been because Dean was missing their father, but never figured out the true reason until this very moment. He looked back at his brother.

Dean, who never complained, who gave everything he ever had to his family. Whose protection of Sam ran so deep, there was nothing he wouldn't do. Sam couldn't help the tears.

"Stop. I'm fine. It was a long time ago."

"Dean..."

"I'm not doing the 'talk about our feelings' crap! We survived. It's over. I'm over it. I'm FINE."

Sam ignored the wall he was trying to hide behind. Without his permission, Dean's mind showed him what he needed. Sam took a cue from his younger and seemingly wiser self and pulled Dean into an embrace. He hugged his brother and for the first time since entering his head, Dean didn't pull away.

"I'm sorry that happened to you. God, I'm so sorry. It's not your fault, don't you dare turn this in on yourself. I—"

Before he spoke another word it felt like the ground opened up and swallowed them both...

They flashed through memories, one after another, good memories. The two of them playing together with Legos and army men. Lounging on the sofa watching old westerns. Sitting on the beach, sinking their toes into the sand.

Dean's mind wanted to get as far away from the bad memory as possible, and probably distract Sam from it too.

The Dean that Sam held in his arms suddenly became the young boy. He hugged Sam back, his arms thrown around his middle, his face buried against his chest. Sam was heartbroken for his Dean, he pulled him as close as he could, as if he could somehow protect him, wrap him up and take him away from all the terrible things he had endured in his life. He kissed the top of his head and his brother let out a comforted sigh against him. Dean wouldn't want to talk about what Sam had seen before this. They would talk, but not here, not now. He needed Dean to wake up first, not retreat further away.

They drifted in and out of memories for a long while. No doors, just space and flashbacks.

Sam and Dean watching fireworks together, Christmas holidays spent with just the two of them, Sam beaming over another A on a paper and Dean pinning it to the fridge. Dean smiling after Sam gave him a birthday present he had wrapped himself. Their first drive in the Impala alone. Sam hugging Dean tight after the eldest son came home from his first hunt with dad. Sam in the school production of "Our Town" and Dean clapping and whistling when Sam took his bow. Playing pranks on each other. The two of them drinking beer sitting out stargazing on the hood of the car. Then it was just them. Joking, laughing, smiling. All their good days in an infinite loop.

Sam was moved by all the things Dean remembered of them and held close. He could have sat right down and watched it forever. But it was better to live than to dream.

"I won't be able to make any future good memories with you if you don't wake up now,"Sam said, but nothing changed, except it was full grown Dean in his arms again. Sam tried again but Dean was lost in good memories and simply wouldn't listen. He kept trying, each happy memory and subsequent lost moment increasing the fear that he'd lose Dean forever.

He knew he had to say something. Push some button that would make him stop. "A little chick-flick, isn't it?" _Fuck_. Sam wanted to take it back the moment it left his lips.

Dean pulled away from him, his entire demeanor changing, bristling. He took a long stride across the room away from Sam without a word.

"I didn't mean that, okay? I just need you to wake up. I'm going to do whatever it takes," he said desperately.

Dean put a hand up and a dozen doors appeared. Sam let out a groan of frustration.

"Don't you get it? I'm never going to stop until you do," Sam said. "So let's fight this monster, or try a chant, or you talk to me already damn it!

Dean continued his silence, concentrating hard at the doors in front of them.

"You want me to beg, Dean? Hell, I'll get on my knees and beg you. I'll do whatever you want!"

There was a baleful laugh in the room and every door before them turned solid black. They had been found yet again.

Dean cursed. He flung a hand up and doors of several colors appeared. Green, pink, yellow, red…

"You know what I want you to do? I want you to shut up."

Sam of course didn't, he kept pleading even as Dean grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him towards a door.

"We are going to run out the clock in here now," Dean threw the door open, "until Bobby breaks your stupid spell and ends my goddamned misery!"

Yellow. Behind the door were things Dean would never admit to in the light of day. It was the door to Dean's embarrassments.

Dean being shot down by a girl in front of a whole circle of giggling girls. Sam had rarely ever seen Dean strike out, but it had happened a surprising number of times he realized, as he got to view them all in a terribly embarrassing row.

"Stop it Dean, talk to me!" Sam said firmly, trying to ignore what he was seeing.

The time when Dean was a child and their father had walked in and caught him rubbing himself off. Then being sat down for "the talk". Dean's face was light up by humiliation through the whole awkward ordeal.

Dean running away from the smallest dog that Sam had ever seen wearing a pink ribbon in its hair.

The time he had split his jeans while they were on a hunt, and dad had refused to go back to the motel, just stuck a patch of duct tape on them. For the whole day. Lunch breaks at a café and all.

"Stop!" Sam repeated but fighting a smirk.

Dean on a hunt, wiggling his head through an iron grating over the windows to an abandoned house trying to get a look inside. "Uh… Dad… uh…" He tugged, "I'm, um, stuck." John dumped gun oil around Dean's head that was stuck between the bars and yanked on him. Dean looked miserable, his hair and face covered in oil and his ears bright red by the time he finally got free. Even John was laughing.

Despite the seriousness of the situation they were in Sam laughed, he couldn't help himself.

Dean trying to scrounge up some extra money while they were on a case in California, showing up at a modeling gig, which ended with him wearing some pretty weird stuff–fashion people are freaks. But whatever, he made some good cash for that. Fast forward a few years when Dean pretended he was researching a case, but was in fact surfing porn on Sam's laptop. And _what is a twink?_ Under the name "J. Thunder" His young self, shirtless and cowboy hat clad, was looking back at him from the page. "Oh…my...god…" Memory Sam looked up at him from across the room and inquired, "What?" Dean slammed the laptop closed.

The laughter was bubbling out of Sam by now, all his efforts to stop only making it worse.

The time Dean fell asleep at a date's house and returned from the bathroom, turning left when he should have turned right. He woke up a few hours later with the woman's mother next to him screaming "CALL THE POLICE! There is a naked man in my bed!" at the top of her lungs as Dean, still not fully awake, bolted from the house. He ran all the way home naked as the day he was born, running into several people on the way, some of whom were screaming, others laughing, and finally John, who stared down at him horrified when he opened the front door.

Sam couldn't stop laughing and doubled over with it. He reached up and gave his brother's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "Oh Dean," He tried to say through the laughs as Dean frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "S'not funny," but he smiled a little as he watched Sam positively bursting, some of the sting of those embarrassments having faded.

Another memory started but Sam hit him hard in the arm, "Stop! Stop, seriously! Stop it!" Sam straightened up as the memory played on anyway but ignored it. His brother had successfully distracted him, damn it. "This is serious. Come on. I don't want to see your Funniest Home Video highlight reels ok? I want to know what is going on with you. Tell me why you won't wake up."

Sam heard his name whispered around the room.

Dean flung open the nearest door. A pink door. And shoved him through.

Suddenly Sam was standing in a gaudy pink room with not one, two, or even three girls, but four! All over Dean. All over each other. Dean was naked, laid out on a bed, while the girls continuously pulled each other off him and climbed on. They grinded up against his hands, sunk their mouths against each other. Limbs and bodies tangled with one another, until an endless chorus of feminine moans was in the air.

"Oh, god." Sam looked across the room, as Dean had put a lot of distance between them. Dean just shrugged and smiled at him. "Memory or dream?" Sam asked. He grinned that cocky grin, and Sam couldn't help the eye roll.

He walked across the room to Dean, making sure not to look back at the scene. He stood there a moment, waiting to leave, but Dean just cocked an eyebrow and didn't move, teasing him that he was plenty happy to stay and watch the rest.

Sam blushed, shifting from one foot to the other. He knew it was a bit of payback for the chick-flick comment, Dean was showing him that he was anything but a chick-flick kind of guy.

"It's a beautiful, natural act, Sam," Dean slapped him on the back. "I should just leave you in here. At least I finally got you to shut up." Sam's mouth opened and closed, impersonating a fish out of water.

"All right, let's find something more G rated for you, kiddo." Dean pulled up more standard doors and walked through one, but it turned pink just as he stepped through.

A brunette and a blowjob was on the other side. Dean looked more shocked than Sam, and he gripped him by the arm and quickly pulled him through the next door. Every door afterwards was one sexual exploit after another.

Dean getting hit on in bars by women. And men. A pretty long string of flirty waitresses. There were chicks Sam knew Dean hooked up with, some he hadn't, and some he was pretty sure were just wishes from the Busty Asian Beauties website. Sam even witnessed some feats he was pretty sure were not physically possible outside of his head… or Dean was in fact as bendy as the slinky he had dreamed of being earlier.

Dean, getting exasperated, opened another door and hesitated a moment but then shook his head and went through.

A memory involving pink satiny panties _Dean_ was wearing was on the other side.

"Dude." Sam's mouth hung open.

"Uh…" It was Dean's turn to blush and laugh nervously. He was concentrating hard now, visibly trying to get them out of the porn loop in his head.

On the other side of the next door was a three-way. With another guy. The girl in the middle on her hands and knees separating the two was moaning her pleasure, while Dean stayed behind the red headed woman, keeping his eyes down and focusing only on her.

Dean was so scandalized and betrayed by his own brain, he was stuck in place.

"None of this exactly fits the standards for a G rating there, Dean," Sam teased and moved past him and reached for the next door himself. "Pervert," Sam laughed as he pulled it open.

Dean's face shifted, and the door Sam walked through turned a deep abysmal gray, nearly black, but Sam was already stepping through it by the time he noticed.

The scene beyond the door stopped him dead in his tracks.

"You sick pervert!" A fist came up hard snapping Memory Dean's head back. He fell backwards onto the garish motel carpet. He let his body stay where it landed, just laid there, not even putting up a fight.

Sam took a step forward before remembering he could do nothing to stop a memory. He grabbed the arm of the Dean standing next to him, this time for reassurance. Dean was trying to change the scene, Sam could feel it in the way his arm was tensing under his grasp, and in the way the memory flickered for an instant, but continued on. Sam took it all in…

Their father was in an absolute fury, he launched himself to the floor, hitting Dean, striking him hard and fast. Dean looked like a rag doll, letting himself be beaten to a bloody mess, not putting up one hand to stop the assault. Just lying there, taking it. John's ring caught Dean's cheek, ripped it open as he hit him, another punch split his chin. When he saw that Dean wasn't even fighting back, John got to his feet again, kicking him as hard as he could in the side. It was twice more before Dean finally balled up on the floor.

Every bruise, every wound, they were the one's Sam had tended too, stitched up that night when Dean had come back to him in Texas and wouldn't tell him what had happened.

John suddenly pulled the knife from his belt fixing his eyes on Dean. The look chilled Sam to the bone. It was a look his father reserved for demons before he sent them back to hell. Sam had seen his father get drunk, he had taken a half hearted swing at Sam numerous times, he had even really hurt Sam several times before, but not like this. That had been murder in his father's eyes.

Dean glared up at John. He stretched his body out, leaned up on his hands so that his chest was open and bared.

Sam's heart pounded against the ribs of his own chest.

"Do it," Dean gurgled as spit and blood came out with the words and ran down his chin.

John suddenly looked pained, like he wanted to plunge the blade into himself. "Son, why are you like this?" He said shaking his head.

"Do it! I'm sick in the goddamned head! I know it!" Dean yelled in reply, getting to his feet, the fight in him returning.

The black door appeared directly in front of them.

"Son of a bitch!" Real Dean spat before he grabbed Sam's arm and they were through another 'safe' door.

"What the hell was that?" Sam nearly screamed as Dean pulled him along.

"Drop it."

"Drop it?!" Sam echoed out still in shock, his voice several octaves higher than normal.

Dean tried to distract him again, shoved him through door after door, all the while Sam refused to 'drop it'.

Sam fought him, struggled against his pull, screamed at him, but they were in Dean's world, and nothing he did seemed to slow them down. He threw up all the good memories he could think of trying to get Sam's attention. None of the happier thoughts got Sam looking anywhere but Dean's face.

"Why the hell would Dad do that?" Sam asked undeterred. The black door appeared but Dean yelled out, screamed and pushed Sam through another safe door. He was desperate then, desperate to distract Sam.

"Tell me why you won't wake up!" The black door appeared again, but Dean flung his hand up, cursing and screaming until it disappeared.

Sam finally, _finally_ got it. Things he said affected what Dean was thinking and thus determined what they saw. Dean might be able to pull him, or rather think him where he wanted, but Sam was the one putting questions in his head, the one directing where his thoughts went.

"Tell me why you won't wake up!" He repeated and the black door appeared again. "Tell me why you won't wake up!" he kept saying it. The door wouldn't be sent away this time.

"No!" Dean yelled as it began to swing open. A stormy blue door appeared, it was cold, wet as if the door itself was crying. Dean didn't know what else to do so he shoved Sam through it.


	7. Closet

The room they stepped into was overcast in gloom, as the walls leaked water until it took on the mournful patter of rain. Instead of falling downward however much of the water ran up the walls of the room and fell drearily towards the ceiling. Some droplets went diagonally across the center of the room splashing against the walls as it struck, while some water fell across the flat floor and swept along as if it were at a slant. Sam reached out a hand curiously towards the rainstorm colored walls, letting the water run over his outstretched fingers. It wasn't wet to the touch, just felt cold. The coldness turned into a feeling that ran up his arm. Melancholy leeched into Sam until he had to start fighting it from overtaking him. He pulled his hand away. This was a place of tears in Dean's head, all stored up, rarely ever shed. Dean was burying them deep inside his mind, trying to lose them somewhere far away.

The memories that began were stitched together in one long stretch of pain.

Dean as a young child sad over a forgotten birthday, long before that had become routine. Sad over the friends he had to leave when they switched schools, before he finally learned to just stop making them. Upset when he made a mistake on a hunt, and John had dropped him off at Pastor Jim's house before he headed back to the hunt without him. Many other little sadnesses falling into view, one after another, like the drops of water that ran down the walls around them.

A child version of Dean suddenly appeared next to Sam and grabbed his hand and held it, "I don't want to be here," he whispered, his eyes big as he looked up imploringly at him. Sam looked over at Real Dean and the stony expression he wore. "Let's leave this place," he said.

A young blonde high school girl suddenly walked past them and shot Dean a look of disgust. "We both know that you're just a sad, lonely little kid. And I feel sorry for you."

"It's the truth! Please. Please don't go," A memory of Dean was pleading, walking past them as if they weren't there. His old flame Cassie went storming by as she made her way to the door.

"You're nuts!" She screamed back.

More women angry with Dean, furious when he lied, seething when he told them the truth, all came and went. Fights and harsh words flowing. Women yelling at Dean, calling him worthless, stupid, crazy.

The memories continued around them, picking up in anger. The barrage of things people said to his brother would be among the cruelest Sam ever heard in his life. Demons didn't even talk that way! Mostly the women seemed angry about the life he led, that he wouldn't leave it to settle down, or they were mad about the truth they discovered about the world they lived in and blamed that on Dean.

_"I wish I had never met you. You're the worse thing that has ever happened to me."_

"How did I get involved with such a train wreck? I must be the first idiot to ever like you."

"The only monster here is you, Dean Winchester. I hope you take that silver knife and stick it through your own heart."

Dean winced.

Sam saw red. He wanted to shoot those bitches full of rock salt.

Dean was trying to stop it now, shook his head, but the visions played on. Another Dean, a sad, blue Dean, appeared before them. "Not good enough. Never am."

Flashes of all the people Dean couldn't save began to appear. The ones that died before he got there, before he ever even knew about the case were first up, as if he blamed himself for not saving the whole of humanity. Then there were the ones he had seen die, who had screamed just inches from him before being torn to shreds. Then the people he held in his arms as they died, the ones he felt go. Even worse, the ones he had to kill while he held them. Had to slit their throats, or shoot them in the heart because they had been turned, without a cure.

Sam knew how hunting had affected him, but he never knew just how deeply Dean held on to each and every person. Blue Dean groaned, "Not good enough, that's why. We let everyone down."

"That's not true!" Sam began what he was saying looking at Blue Dean, before turning his head back to Real Dean. "You've saved so many people! No one can save the whole world."

All the people they had personally known that had died began to flash, all their faces, all their wounds, all the loss. Dean tried to wave the images away, it was all too much.

Sam could see the black door off in the distance of all these memories now, like a vulture circling the dying. Dean was losing control. It was like the dam had broken, all his pain rushing out unstoppable. Young Dean hid behind Sam.

Another Dean stepped out in front of them, his features distorted by anger. Sam took a step back as this Angry Dean leaned in and whispered hatefully, "Everyone leaves you."

Soft feminine humming began to fill the room.

"I don't want to be here!" Young Dean began to beg from behind him. Sam put his hand on Real Dean's arm then, steadying them both. "Make it stop now," He pleaded as Dean shook his head, trying the best he could.

He recognized the hummed song as it increased in volume around them, "Hey Jude."

A sob ripped out of Dean.

The memory was of their mother. She was smiling, ruffling her fingers lovingly against young Dean's head, "Angels are watching over you, baby." The sudden nostril singeing stench of burning flesh and hair filled the air until Sam choked on it. He felt the intense heat flare from above them.

_"Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!" _

The tiny four year old Dean was outside cradling infant Sam, their house ablaze in front of him. Sam heard his brother's whispered begging to the angels. Dean's very last prayer...

The humming continued on around them undeterred through it all.

"Make it stop, Dean!" Sam pleaded again.

Blue Dean was there and he turned and grabbed at Real Dean, "What did you do? What was it?" Sam put a hand onto the Dean next to him and pushed Blue Dean away from them.

A loud boom echoed around them like fireworks, startling them both. A young Sammy ran towards them, smiling up at Dean. "This is great!" He hugged his arms around his brother's waist. As Dean tried to return the hug the young Sam vanished.

Younger memory Dean walked past them, clearly terrified, holding an EMF meter in his hand. "He wouldn't do that, Dad!"

"Nothing took him, he ran away." John was picking up the keys to the car.

"No. Sam wouldn't go like that. He wouldn't just… leave!"

The two vanished and another memory of Dean was opening Sam's bedroom door.

"Hey, Dad's not home, what do you say we ditch the studying and go see a movie tonight or we could go…" A teenage Sam got off his bed and walked towards Dean. Without a word he closed the door in Dean's face. Dean hit the door with a fist then pivoted on his heels and walked straight out of the house.

"Everyone leaves you." Angry Dean repeated to them with a sneer. "What did I do?" Blue Dean asked. Real Dean shook his head, he wanted it to stop. Now.

"Sam?" It was a memory of them, Dean and an almost adult Sam, lying in their separate beds in a motel room with the lights out, no doubt on some hunt with Dad one room over. Neither of them was asleep.

"Are you mad at me for something?"

Sam rolled over in his bed facing away. "No."

"Listen, if I did something…" Dean said, looking at the back of Sam's head.

"I hate this life. I hate all of it. I can't wait until I'm out of here," he huffed in reply.

Memory Dean rolled away to face the opposite wall too. He curled up small under his covers.

Child Dean gasped from behind Sam, "You hate me." Sam tried to speak, but another memory started before he could even think. It was all moving too fast to process.

Memory Dean was chasing an angry Sam with his bag slung over his arm down the stairs. "Dad doesn't mean it. You know the temper he has. Don't go like this, Sam."

Sam stormed past their father in the living room and Dean grabbed hold of his sweatshirt. Sam turned and looked at him, his eyes shifting and furious. "But he does mean it. Because I…"

"If you walk away from this family," his father cut him off, "your responsibilities…If you leave…" John jumped to his feet as an enraged Sam whipped around to face him, pulling out of Dean's grasp. "Then don't come back!"

John flung open the front door and stood next to it.

Sam walked towards their father. His fists balled tight as he got right into John's face. He looked him in the eye, defiant and puffing out his chest. But without a word he turned around and stormed out, taking his anger into the night. John blocked the doorway, Dean behind him looked devastated. It was one of the last fights Sam had with his father before he left the life of hunting.

The scene changed and Memory Dean was sitting in the bright morning sunlight in the Impala, parked outside the same house. Drunk off his ass and…crying.

Sam had never seen Dean cry like that, a tear, maybe two, but never openly sobbing out in grief. Dean just _didn't_ cry like that. Not for gunshot wounds or for girls. Not for anything. It hit Sam like a punch to the face that this was when he had gone off to college. _He hadn't thought that… he just didn't realize… _

Sam watched the memory of Dean cry, and the Real Dean next to him tugged out of his grasping hand, stepping away from him. The child Dean behind Sam, now sobbing too, ran away from him, vanishing into the walls of water.

"Why?" Blue Dean repeated. "Because you deserve to be left!" The Angry Dean spat at them as he circled the scene, "You deserve it! You should be alone. We're going to die alone."

Those words struck at Sam, knowing this is how Dean felt. He shook his head no, but then shock overtook him again…

As Memory Dean sitting in the Impala suddenly yanked off the amulet from around his neck, the one Sam had given to him all those years ago. Letting a yell tear out of him, he flung it across the car. It cracked into the window leaving a chip in the glass before it landed with a muffled thud in Sam's empty seat. Dean turned away and cried harder, clutching at the ghost of it around his neck.

A memory of their father appeared a second later. He was sitting on the edge of a motel bed while his father packed. Dean looked aged beyond his twenty five years as John was telling him he had a lead he needed to follow up on, alone. Dean was old enough to get out there on his own now. They could cover more ground if they split up.

"But Dad, I don't–"

"That's an order."

"Yes, Sir. But can't I–"

"_Dean. _"

That final word silenced all protests and he picked up the bag at his feet and left the room.

Memory John was there again, some other time before Sam had come back to join the fight. Dean was trying to voice how he felt to his father, trying to explain, to ask for help. He _needed help_.

"You need to man up is what you need. Stop acting like the world is ending, we have a job to do," John said, disappointment soaked deep into each word. Dean just lowered his head. He didn't say another thing.

"That is enough, make it stop," Sam repeated. Dean's trembling hands were on the sides of his head, trying.

Memory Dean was sitting in the car by himself in the dark. He stared out into the emptiness of the night beyond the glass, a blank lifeless expression on his face. He was covered in someone else's blood. Another hunt gone wrong. No one there to talk to. He flipped his phone open, pulled up Sam's number. Closed it. Sam hadn't called him in two years.

Dean leaned over and fished something out of the glove compartment. He held the object up, the brassy color glinting in the moonlight. With the same blank expression still on his face he dropped the black cord back around his neck.

Angry Dean was standing in the room with them again and began to walk towards them, letting all his hate come seething out at the real Dean, at himself. "I don't know why you keep trying. I know how worthless you are. I know how you look into a mirror and hate what you see. You should hate what you see! Just stop fighting. It's not much of a life worth saving anyway. After all, what do you have? You have nothing. You _are_ nothing. Nothing outside of..."

Real Dean cut himself off, screaming back to his own words like he had split personalities. "I don't deserve this life. He's the one who wasn't there. He wasn't there for me, he wasn't there for Sam! I always was! I shouldn't hate myself for it."

The black door appeared, disappeared, reappeared. A line of doors appeared behind it, all in varying shades of blue.

An adolescent Dean darted from behind one of the doors and Sam almost jumped. "It's us!" he yelled. "They leave because of who we are!" Then he began to creepily singsong a verse of a poem as he skipped around the room.

_"There's no monster in the closet, no shadow under your bed, it's just the normal whispers, sending darkness through your head!" _

His voice was echoing it over and over until Sam could not repress the shiver that ran up his spine. A lot of other Deans of all ages started emerging from the blue doors. Some grasping at bleeding wounds, others dragging behind them the people they couldn't save. Some small and running terrified, others upset and muttering, pleading or throwing punches at phantom foes.

Sam did jump this time when Angry Dean reappeared directly in front of them and shoved Real Dean as hard as he could. "Stop!" Sam cried. Angry Dean grinned at himself, "They can't stand to be around us. No one can." He tried to pull Real Dean out of Sam's grasp but Sam held on firmly. Child Dean ran back out from behind the weeping walls, collapsing at the feet of Sam, hugging himself against his legs. Adolescent Dean continued his eerie chant.

_It's just the normal whispers! _

"Please don't hate me!"

"We're going to go to hell for what we are."

"I'm already in hell!"

_Sending darkness through your head! _

"…Why don't you kill yourself?"

"**NO**!" Sam yelled out. All of the Deans in the room vanished except the one Sam was clinging fast to, the original Dean.

Sam couldn't bear watching all of Dean's self hatred come out like that, all of his pain. "Whatever bullshit you are holding in, it doesn't matter. You are a good person, why can't you see that?" he asked.

"A good person," Dean shook his head.

Memory Dean was there again in reply to Sam. He swung the car to the shoulder of the road, kicking up dust as it screeched to a halt just as he reached the driveway to The Saddles and Boots Motel. He sat there a moment, staring out the windshield. He fingered the 9mm gun sitting in his lap. He was covered in blood, damaged from his father's blows. He glanced in his rearview mirror, watching the road and he flicked the safety off the gun.

Sam tried to see what was chasing Dean, what he was afraid of. A sick feeling pooled in his guts at the realization of what he was actually witnessing.

He flipped the safety back on. And off again. Back on. Off.

Dean held the gun up and closed his eyes. He rolled his head back and forth against it slowly, letting the muzzle of the gun scratch along the hair near his temple. He sat still for a long minute and let out a shuddery breath.

He glanced back up, toward the motel, toward their room. Sam happened to walk in front of the window with a book in his hand, oblivious. Dean dropped the gun as if it had bit him and it hit the seat, bounced and skittered to the floor. His body trembling, he bowed his head as if to cry, but then hollered instead and began punching his fist against the steering wheel. He pulled up to the motel and swung the door open. He was back two days earlier than Sam expected him to arrive and knew he looked as reckless and wild as he felt…

"Jesus, Dean. Why would you even?" Real Sam couldn't believe that Dean would...he couldn't even let himself think it!

"Why can't you see yourself like I see you?" He continued.

"The way _you_ see me?" Dean's voice seemed to echo from far away.

The Dean next to him was numb, he had nothing left to give. But his mind spoke for him, and he didn't even bother trying to send the memories away. With weary resignation, he closed his eyes to it.

Memory Sam was there pulling Memory Dean to his feet. They were standing in Sam's apartment near Stanford. This was the night Dean showed up, the first time they had seen each other in years.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" Sam cringed when he heard his memory self say the words, when he heard the venom in his voice.

Dean was broken, Dad was missing, and those were some of the first words out of Sam's mouth to him. He sees the look of pain that flashes in Dean's eyes for the quickest of seconds, before the facade went up, hiding how Sam had wounded him. He joked it off.

"Well I was looking for a beer."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Okay. All right. We gotta talk."

"Uh, the phone?" Sam continued in the same heartless tone.

"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" Dean asked.

Real Sam looked down, closing his eyes to it too. He had so many regrets, and this was a fresh one. This was how Dean saw himself, how he thought Sam felt. Dean didn't view himself as Sam's hero any more, not even his brother. Dean saw himself in the exact way Sam's voice had been that night. In Dean's mind it had confirmed that he was nothing, just a link to the past that Sam didn't want.

"…Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days…"

Dean was wearing that same blank expression now. The look of being so far past pain… that you finally felt nothing.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

The world they were in slowly started to fade, to whiteout around the edges, growing fainter.

"I'm so sorry. But it isn't like that, none of it is like that. You've got it wrong."

"No?" his tone bitter, "then tell me what it is like, Sam."

"Mom didn't leave you, she was taken. Dad didn't leave you either, he just isn't coping well. And I… I'm not going to leave you again. I didn't have a choice before, okay?"

Sam fought for the words, the ones he really wanted to say, but they wouldn't come.

"You don't have a choice now either," Dean replied. His whole being was gaunt, worn out. The world faded until Sam and Dean were standing in a big empty space. No doors, no walls, nothing but a vast white expanse on all sides of them.

"We are going to get you out of this," Sam said quieter, determined. "And we are going to work on all these things, all of them. Whatever it takes."

Dean slumped, and put an arm around Sam's shoulder to keep himself standing.

"Sammy. Please. Let me go."

While Sam was taken aback by the secrets his brother was revealing-his feelings, all his pain- no matter what he saw he couldn't let it drop, because Dean HAD to wake up. Sam needed to know what was behind door number one.

"There is no sandman here… it's this thing with Dad. That's why you won't wake up? This secret?" Sam finally asked the real question. "I don't care what you've done. I don't care what dad thinks."

Dean just slumped against him further, defeated.

Sam tried to think of what would set his father off to such an extreme, what would disappoint a man like John Winchester and leave Dean so wreaked. He felt like he was staring right at the answer, like it was right there, but he was a blind man. He wracked his brain until little bits and pieces, hints of things started to fall into place, until he thought he might finally know...

"Listen Dean, if you are bisexual or gay or whatever, you know it doesn't matter to me, right? You don't have to be alone because of it. I don't care if you like guys. And if it matters to dad he can go to hell."

Dean laughed. Honest to goodness laughed, bent over, his arm still slung around Sam's neck, his body bouncing with laughter. But it quickly went from a deep amused laugh to a high pitched insane laugh. The laugh of a mad man.

"You have to come out of this!" Sam grabbed Dean by the shoulders and shook him cutting off his deranged howls.

"I don't _want_ to!" Dean snapped.

He flung Sam's hands off of him so hard that Sam staggered backwards, startled.

"I don't want to come out of this! Can't you for once, just for once, listen to me and hear what I'm saying? Just do what I am asking of you? I don't want to wake up. I want you out of my mind!"

Sam was angry. He was scared. He didn't know what else to do. He grabbed Dean by the collar of his jacket, pulled him in, shook him, and he just…

"_Sam_," a voice called from behind him.

Standing in stark contrast to the never ending white was the solid black door. It waited, in the center of the room, looming.

Dean was worn thinner than his favorite t-shirt, but he pulled Sam away from the door. Sam resisted him, and much to his surprise easily broke free of his grip. He almost lost his footing because it had been the first time he had managed successfully to pull away while in Dean's head. He turned back towards the door and ran at it.

Dean tackled him from behind throwing them both to the floor. They were struggling, fighting each other on the ground. They were locking arms and breaking free, until they began throwing punches. Dean hit Sam first, clocking him and sending his face sideways to the floor. Sam recovered and socked Dean in the chin, trying to force his weight off. Dean got the upper hand and pinned Sam on his back to the floor, one hand at Sam's neck, screaming nearly hysterical.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD, SAM! GET OUT!"

Sam wiggled an arm free, and hell, this wasn't reality… he focused all his mental energy into his shove, and it worked! The heel of his hand punched into Dean's shoulder and he flew backwards and toppled. Sam was up, on his feet and at the door as Dean raced after him.

"Don't," Dean begged from behind him as Sam reached for the door, "Sam, just…please."

He slumped down then, in what seemed like slow motion, like the effort of all of this was draining him away. He kneeled, head down behind Sam's ever long legs, one arm reaching up to grip the fabric of Sam's pant leg with a weak tug. It was all the effort he seemed to have left in holding his little brother back.

Sam's hand was on the black door knob, it was hot and tacky under his fingers. He looked behind him.

"Please wake up," he implored one final time but Dean just let out a cry of frustration.

His brother had refused to let him in, told him just the barest of facts in the waking world for so many years that Sam was almost sick with the real pleasure of being in Dean's head, seeing those secrets come tumbling out at his feet, really _knowing_ him. He was thinking of all the ways he could try to help when this was all done, all the ways they could talk. He could explain himself. He could try to fix this. Fix Dean. After all he had seen, what was this thing that Dean guarded like it was the devil himself?

"Don't do this." Dean's words were a whispered plea, but they fell on deaf ears.

He knew he was mentally mind fucking his brother now, pulling his most private thoughts out of the shadows and into the light. He had already seen things that Dean would have been happy to take to his grave, almost down to the center of his very self loathing core, but he had to know.

Sam didn't care who Dean had killed, who Dean had fucked. There was nothing that could make Sam not want to see, not want to know his brother more than anything in the world. He knew the only way to convince him that nothing could change his mind was to see beyond Dean's last door.

"There is nothing that will change my mind or stop me from waking you up." Sam gripped the doorknob and he turned it all the way and watched the door swing inward. Beyond lay darkness, as black as the door itself had been. It was so pitch black that it seemed to be alive and pulling in any light that dared to get too close, swallowing it down.

Dean began to cry out behind him, "I'll do whatever you want! Just stop!"

Sam shifted forward.

"No, no, don't. Don't–stop! Stop! Stop, Sam! –Please! If you care about me at all, Sam!"

"_Sam_," another voice breathed out in front of him from the center of the darkness.

He took a step forward to whatever lay beyond...

To be continued…

Comments keep my fingers typing. Why yes that is a shameless request for feedback! Even a "you suuuuuuuuuck" at least then I know people are reading ha. What can I say, seeing comments makes my muse go wild ;)


	8. In Your Head

**Warning NC-17 ahead**

Sam stepped forward into the hot, damp pitch-blackness and the door slammed shut behind him. A force pulled him forward, rushing him further inside. He tried to slow the movement, but his shoes skidded along the floor, barely resisting the drag. There was a rise of disembodied voices calling out from in front of him, growing louder the further he was pulled in. He couldn't help but think of Dante's inferno, as if he was about to discover the tenth circle inside Dean's head. His hunter senses were tingling.

"_Sam._"

It was the voice that had been haunting them, stalking them at every turn. But there was nothing of the devil in it now, it was purely…

"Dean?"

The pulling stopped as quickly as it had started and a light came on from above. Dean was leaning up against a black wall with a dangerous glint in his eye. He was clothed in black from head to toe, even the charm around his neck was as inky as the door had been. Everything else around them remained in shadow.

All the way down to the very stuff he is made of, Sam knows his brother. There are no monsters here... "I'm here. I'm not leaving," he said.

Dark Dean pushed away from the wall with the tiniest hint of a smile. His eyes, a piercing shade of bright green in sharp contrast to all the darkness around them, lingered on Sam as he closed the small space between them. This wasn't the Dean that Sam had left pleading with him on the other side of the closed door. This Dean looked feral, like a wolf coming to gobble Sam up.

As he watched him approach he realized that the Dean of this dark place must be a fractured part of his brother's mind, some dangerous part he'd kept locked away from the rest of himself. His stomach tightened at the way Dean looked him up and down, predatory, studying him as if he was about to attack. Sam forced himself to relax. No part of Dean would ever hurt him.

"You're going to w-wake up now." Sam's voice waivered a little as Dark Dean's tongue peeked out and unconsciously licked over his lips as he moved in even closer. Sam could feel the heat coming off his body.

He raised a hand up and without warning let the pad of his finger touch the bare skin at Sam's throat, feeling his veins pulse beneath it. The touch caused Sam's heart to do a somersault jump, and Dean flashed a knowing smile. His finger moved downwards over the soft red plaid shirt on Sam's chest.

"I've been waiting for you a long time," He finally spoke, his hand dropping along the length of Sam's stomach, tracing firmly downwards, and momentarily hooking against his belt.

"Sam," Dean leaned in and breathed in his ear, "_Sammy._"

His hand slipped over the rough material of Sam's jeans. Right down the center of him.

Sam nearly jumped out of his skin, his eyes flaring with shock at the feel of Dean's fingers brushing against his package. He grabbed Dark Dean's wrist and jerked his hand away from him. Dean laughed and abruptly spun Sam around pushing him forward in the darkness towards all the other voices in the space calling for him.

The darkness in the rest of the room melted away slowly, like someone unwinding bandages from over Sam's eyes. His name was being said all around him.

Said like it was heaven—

_"Sammy." _

Like it was hell—

_"No Sam, oh oh, don't." _

It was chanted, whispered, moaned, and even sworn out like it was a curse, like it was a promise—

_"Sam, Oh Sam, Oh god Sam! SAM!" _

And all in Dean's own _whiskygravelhoneyheaven_ voice.

The darkness was finally gone and Sam felt like he was facing a room of endless mirrors, his own face reflected everywhere he looked. But not mirrors. Before him were hundreds of Sams. Hundreds of Deans. Thousands. It was possible they went on forever...

His brother's secret was Sam. He _wanted_ Sam. He wanted him in any possible way he could have him, and here before Sam's eyes every one of those memories and fantasies was playing out simultaneously...

* * *

Sam was lying out on the bed in the house they had been renting during that overly warm summer when he was sixteen. His shirt was pulled up, his stomach exposed. He held out a hand towards Dean.

"Sammy," Dean sunk to his knees on the bed between Sam's spread legs. He leaned down and let his lips just barley brush that soft line of hair that led down Sam's belly and disappeared into his unbuttoned jeans. Dean nearly purred…

* * *

Dean rolled over in his own hotel bed and sleepily glanced across to the other bed in the room. Sam's fist was moving under the sheets with eagerness. He was trying to keep quiet, but small gasps were making their way past his lips. He was so lost in it that he didn't notice Dean was awake.

"Sam."

Sam stopped, laid still.

"Keep going…"

Sam hesitated. Then his hand started moving again, harder than before. "You like that?" Sam continued to stoke himself. He shifted so the sheet fell away letting Dean really see him.

"You like watching me, Dean?" His voice hitched with pleasure. "I want you to..."

A wanton cry escaped Dean's lips as he twisted out from under his sheets.

* * *

Memory Dean stretched out on a motel bed, holding the phone to his ear, "Yeah. No, I am listening, Sam! Geeze." His eyes closed as his fingers played over the tip of his cock. "Keep talking. I swear I'm listening." He exhaled a soft breath and he let his hand stroke down his shaft. "Mmhmm, case, Michigan... tell me the details again." He continued to stroke himself getting off on the sound of Sam's voice in his ear. Abruptly, as if realizing what he was doing, he forced his hand away from himself and down to his side.

* * *

Sam was shirtless. Just Sam. Shirtless.

* * *

Dean was on his knees completely naked other than the tie around his neck and the cuffs keeping his arms restrained behind him. Sam was standing over him fully dressed in his FBI suit with only his erect cock out in his hand. He slapped the head of it against Dean's upturned blissed-out face.

"Open," Sam's tone was all dominance as he looked down at his brother.

Dean parted his mouth, eyes closing. Sam rubbed his cock along Dean's plump bottom lip.

"Stick your tongue out." Dean complied without hesitation.

Sam pulled at the tie around his neck 'til Dean had no choice but to lean forward and let Sam's stiff length press and slid up his tongue.

"You are going to swallow everything I have to give you."

Dean moaned in pleasure and stuck his tongue out further.

* * *

"Dude, whatever those doctors gave you for the pain, I seriously want some," Memory Dean said as he was helping hoist the hunt injured and very drugged Sam into bed. He sat on the edge and tugged the covers up. "You aren't going to remember any of this, are you?"

Sam put a hand out and booped him on the nose and then laughed giddily.

"You always were a happy drunk." Dean said with a smile. "In that case, I'm gonna' tell you something Sammy. I'm in...I-I'm. I want you."

Sam giggled.

"Think that is funny, huh? Yeah, me too." Memory Dean tried to smile but his voice came out like misery.

Sam reached for him, slurring, "I kiss'd'you, mhmm. Wo'f."

"Uh-huh... Who you dreaming of Sammy? Some hot blonde number I'm guessing."

"Is k'? You kiss'm'now." He slurred again, his arm loosely slung around Dean's neck, tugging.

"You want me to kiss you?" Dean was all grins.

Sam just repeated his words but his eyes were falling closed. Dean sighed, "If I weren't a better man." And kissed him on the forehead.

* * *

The two of them were lying out naked on the world's plushest bed, covered in white silk sheets and endless pillows. Dean was lazily laying kisses from the top of Sam's forehead down in a line, down his nose, pausing for several gentle presses to his lips, then down his chin, under and then further along, leaving soft caresses against his throat. He smiled as he worked his way back up and Sam wrapped him up in his arms, pulling him in. A cloud drifted by through Dean's thoughts of Heaven.

* * *

Dean shoved Sam roughly against the wall as they rounded the corner of the bar.

"I saw you kiss that little slut, you trying to make me jealous?" Dean's voice was full of high-charged tension and lust.

"I thought maybe… we could fuck her together," Sam's voice was all teasing in tone.

"I don't play nice with others," Dean turned him and shoved Sam's chest back against the wall, holding his arms behind him. "I think I'm gonna have to remind you who you belong to." He pressed himself closer, letting Sam feel how excited and hard he was.

Sam moaned, "Yeah. P-please, Dean, I need…"

Dean let his voice rumble against his ear "Yeah baby, I know what you need, but I'm not going to give it to you until you beg. I'm going to pound your ass so hard that you stay fucked, 'til you never forget you are mine again."

* * *

Sam, wearing a preacher's outfit for a case, was adjusting his collar in the mirror.

Dean was grinning sinfully behind him. "Forgive me, Father, for I've been having impure thoughts..."

"Oh?" Sam turned to him with a devilish look, unzipping his black pants. "Maybe you need to get on your knees and beg for forgiveness."

"Holy fuck."

* * *

Fists pulling hair, lips kissing, biting, carnal moans, the two of them pushing and pulling and wildly fucking.

* * *

Memory Dean had his cell phone up to this ear as he paced down the aisle of the gas station, pretending to be looking for snacks.

"You're under a spell. Fortunately for you it ain't a particularly nasty one. The witch was just making the townsfolk give over to their cravings, right?" Bobby was saying on the other end of the call. "So just find a lady and the world's biggest cheeseburger and get it over with."

Dean swallowed nervously and tossed a look outside at Sam who was waiting in the Impala. "I uh, I can't really give in to this, Bobby. You are gonna have to find me another way…"

* * *

They were sitting in a back booth at a smoky bar, both filled with one too many drinks. Dean was watching his brother, leering like he wished he was the bottle of beer Sam was pressing up to his lips. Sam laughed and leaned over the table and drunkenly pressed his lips to Deans.

* * *

They were standing in front of a full length bedroom mirror, Dean no longer taller than Sam's barely legal body. Dean's hand was closed around Sam's length stroking him, the thick fingers of his other hand pushing up knuckle deep into his tight hole. Sam's eyes were closed, while Dean was entranced, watching him in the mirror.

"You like that, sweetheart?"

Sam moaned and pushed his body forward and back, as if he couldn't make up his mind which felt better. "Look," Dean whispered the command into Sam's ear as he twisted his fingers deeper inside. Sam's eyes opened and locked onto his own reflection in the mirror before drifting back to Dean's lust filled green ones behind him. "You are making me so hard seeing you like this Sammy. I wanna watch you come."

* * *

A much older Sam and Dean were lying in bed, cozy. Sam leaned in and kissed both of Dean's closed eyelids softly, kissed the tip of his nose, kissed his chin. Dean sighed. Happiness. This was it for him.

"Gross!" the memory of teenage Sam said from the couch next to Dean as he watched him lick his finger and stick it into the last slice of pizza.

"Just claiming what is mine, so your bottomless pit doesn't steal it later," He grinned.

The memory faded into fantasy...

Dean leaned over and licked Sam's face. "Gross!"Sam repeated and wiped his hand over the back of the damp spot on his cheek. Dean, still leaning in licked his tongue down the side of his neck. "Gross," Sam said with a little less fervor, a hand going to the back of Dean's head.

Dean licked and kissed underneath his chin, down the other side of his neck. "Claiming what is mine," Dean repeated and pulled Sam's lips towards him…

* * *

"Are you… getting off on my dirty clothes?" Sam grabbed his balled up shirt out from behind Dean that he was trying to hide. Dean sputtered unable to respond.

Sam suddenly rubbed the shirt over his cheek and neck, pushed it over his chest, and down between his legs. With a grin he held the shirt, dirty with Sam, over Dean's shocked face until the scent was heavy around him. Dean was already moaning, breathing in deeply, desperate for the scent, for anything to do with Sam.

Sam straddled Dean's naked lap, and unzipped his own jeans, pressing himself against Dean's already achingly hard length. He tugged Dean's hand back down to where he had been fisting himself when Sam had walked into the room a moment ago, only now he was fisting them both at once…

* * *

"We settle this the old-fashioned way!"

One two three. Sam slapped his fist down, rock. He stared over at Dean's hand, paper.

"But you…you always pick scissors." Sam's grin of victory faded, looking up at Dean.

Dean smiled roguishly back at him as he unzipped his jeans.

"Dude, did you just let me win all those other times, so you... did you _train_ me to always pick rock?"

The smile on Dean's face increased as he leaned back and pulled out his already hardening cock. "When you gonna learn to always keep an ace up your sleeve?"

"You dirty little…I'm gonna take that out on your ass later." Sam smirked back.

"Maybe. But right now you are gonna take it out on my dick. You said winner gets whatever he wants right? Oh Sammy… the things I want from you…" He pulled Sam over to him, "The things I'm gonna make you do."

* * *

"You had me worried! Pull those jeans down, I'm gonna smack that pretty ass 'til you're sorry."

Dean was wearing the very shirt he had on when they had been on the kitsune hunt. Sam too was wearing the very jeans he had been wearing that day, only now they were dropped to his knees, as his brother pulled him back until his legs were in between Dean's spread ones.

Dean let his heavy hand swing down and smack directly against Sam's willing ass, hard enough to leave red finger prints marred across the cheek. He admired it for a moment and then slapped against him twice more in quick succession until Sam's back arched.

You sorry yet?" Dean smiled as he started kissing down Sam's backside, his tongue starting to lick at the base of Sam's spine and sink lower. Sam moaned and shook his head yes, but Dean let his hand smack down against the reddening globes of his ass again anyway.

"What was that one for?" Sam asked breathily, looking over his shoulder.

"Well, now I'm punishing you for making me all hot for you while we are on a case," He smacked Sam's ass again, but then he leaned down and sunk his teeth against the tender skin. "I love your ass, I just want to fuck every fucking fuckable part of your whole gorgeous fucking body."

Fantasy Sam laughed as the real Sam would have at just how many fucks Dean could fit in a sentence.

* * *

Sam had finished stitching Dean up and was running his hands over Dean's sides, checking him for injuries. Dean's breathing started to get labored at the feel of Sam's gentle touch against him.

"Sam…" He said his voice full of want. Sam looked up at him, his fingers still tracing along Dean's ribs. "You have to stop, you're getting me all..."

Sam's hands traced down over the swelling hardness in his jeans. "I'm going to make you feel better, Dean," he tugged at his zipper, "all better…"

* * *

Dean was in his head as he was just a short time ago, being pinned by Sam while another memory Sam below him wrapped around him from behind. Sam and Sam. A Sam sandwich.

The memory turned fantasy…

"What am I going to have to do? Fuck you into consciousness, Dean?" the Sam on top of him began to slide down his body, rough and ripping Dean's shirt as he went. The Sam underneath him pinned his legs to the floor and grabbed onto his arms, holding him down and open for the Sam on top to unbuckle his jeans. Bottom Sam began rutting against his ass, and whispering filth into his ear. "We are both going to fuck you, Dean."

The lights flickered and the black door appeared, pulling him out of fantasy.

"Get the hell off me, ginormo!"

* * *

"You want me to beg, Dean? Hell, I'll get on my knees and beg you. I'll do whatever you want!"

An image of Sam in his knees, begging for a taste of Dean's cum made the black door appear again.

* * *

Dean was sitting on a motel bed, as other fantasy Deans and Sams around him were playing out his desires, but he remained alone, just watching. An electrical zing went through the air in the room and a Sam suddenly appeared next to him, stretched out across the bed, his eyes closed. Real Dean turned, and as if he was hypnotized, magnetized, his body moved until he was laid out on top of Sam, pressing his weight against him, in absolute euphoria to the touch. He ran his fingers through his hair and bent to kiss him.

Lips almost touching, close enough that Sam's breath is mingling with his own, he stopped, his eyes going wide. "_Sam_?"

He went white and then jumped off the bed, backing away from it. The black door was standing open in the room, and he pulled at the fantasies around him, sending all the other Sams and Deans back through the door. Just as he was closing it, Dark Dean pushed his way through and inside the motel room. He walked straight towards Sam, sunk over the bed and looked down at him.

"Oh god! He's here. In here, inside us." Dark Dean said as he bent to kiss him, but Real Dean grabbed him and pulled him away.

"Let's kiss him, let's hold him down and kiss him, let's make him ours." Dark Dean's voice was all lust and longing.

"I'd never do that. I'd never hurt Sam," Dean pushed his desire in bodily form back to the door.

"Not going to hurt him, going to kiss him, make him feel so good. Oh God, can't you feel him? His mind with ours? How can you possibly fight it?"

"Because we can't have him! He doesn't want us."

"I'm going to kiss him until he wants it!" He let out a humorless laugh at his own scandalized face looking back at him.

Dean growled. "No! We aren't going to lay a finger on him. You are going to go back behind that sick fucking door, and leave us alone. I'll kill us before we ever hurt Sam." He shoved Dark Dean through the door and slammed it.

Dark Dean whispered through the door undeterred, "We can't kill ourselves from inside, and you won't be able to resist forever. That monster left you weak, and Sam feels too good this close. All you can do is run and hide. Hide how bad we want him. Try not to think about it, Dean." He laughed. "Try not to think about the only thing we can think about anymore..."

Dean slammed the door a few more times until the black door turned back into the regular motel door. Dean began pacing, terrified of himself, of his thoughts, of Sam finding out. Real Sam moved his head waking up.

* * *

Sam was at the bus station, the last time he had seen Dean before he left for Stanford. He had snuck out early that night and hitched, arriving at the bus station before dawn. Dean had known his plans and showed up at the station anyway. He pulled up in the Impala and waited until Sam reluctantly got in, for only a moment. They sat in silence. "Bye, Sam," Dean finally managed and Sam got out of the car without a word.

In Dean's head the memory started out the same, only it didn't end that way...

Fantasy Sam was making the most obscene noises as he rode his brother's cock in the front seat of the Impala. Dean pushed up into him with abandon for a moment, then his face turned away, even being buried in Sam, Dean still looked heartbroken and sick with grief.

The Sam in his lap pulled his head up and looked into his eyes. "I'll never leave you Dean. I'll stay and be yours. Forever." He punctuated each vow with a deep downwards thrust of his body enveloping Dean further inside his tight heat and planting fevered kisses against his mouth.

Dean pulled at him then, not wanting even an inch of space between them, as if that small distance might be enough to separate them forever.

"Yes," Dean gasped against his throat, "Be mine Sam, please, please, be mine Sam, please."

"I'm yours," Sam whispered and Dean cried out his hips bucking and lifting Sam.

"Mine! Mine mine— I love you!"

* * *

Sam, the real and true Sam, finally managed to turn away from the constant flash of fantasies streaming endlessly before him. He was trying not to laugh or scream or just fall down and cry.

"Fuck," he finally settled on.

Every Dean in every fantasy turned to face him. "Sam!" was sung out in unison and it roared through the space, shaking the world of Dean's head.

In the next instant Sam's skin felt like it was blazing with the heat of Dean all around him. He inhaled, the scent hitting him as if there was more Dean than air. It smelled of body warmed leather and the road, sex incarnate, hints of whiskey, something sweet like cherry pie, earth, blood, gunpowder …but over all this there was the rugged indefinable scent that was only Dean. His skin, his breath, his being.

Sam opened his eyes and stared. Green eyes in emerald, absinth, clover, candy apple, grass, mint, jade, jungle, in every shade he had ever known them, was before him now. Plump kiss begging lips and the flash of white teeth beyond, his cut jaw, strong shoulders, searching hands, perfect nose, taunt muscles, endless scores of barely there freckles everywhere he looked. All that was before him was Dean.

Dean's lips found his skin, every single inch all at once, his mouth was against every piece of flesh of Sam's body. Hundreds of ghost like hands touched him at once, gripped his cock simultaneously, fingertips in all states of pressure stroked him. Hands held his arms out, his legs spread, pulled him in all directions. Hundreds of hands where in his hair, pulling, playing, brushing away bangs. Mouths licked and sucked his every inch. Dean's hot tongue, thick fingers, thicker cock, all entering and fucking and loving his ass at once. He was covered in Dean, filled with him, surrounded until his every sense overloaded.

Too much, it was far too much. _Everything_ was Dean.

Dark Dean's hands were on him, above everything else all the other endless strokes and touches, Sam felt his fingers caress his face. He leaned up until he was an inch from Sam's lips. "I want you!" Sam felt the words with his whole body, the pure essence of Dean's desire engulfing him as Dean leaned in to finally let himself kiss Sam…

Sam threw his head back. He felt like he was indeed now laughing and screaming and crying all at once. But above all else he was most definitely coming.

His whole body tightened, threads of pleasure uncoiling in him, snapping until he could not stand to hold it back. He let it tear through him and out, until he was pulsing and spilling hot and wet against Dean.

He barely had a second until it built up instantly, rising, ripping, burning with an intense pleasure and coming impossibly hard a second time. He came seconds after, and again. Kept on until he could no longer tell if he was still on his feet or if he was on the ground, or if he was on the fucking moon.

He was coming as if he was the Sam in every one of those fantasies, all at once.

Every time he couldn't have anything left, he couldn't possibly, the pleasure jolted and rolled. Sam was coming while buried in Dean's warm mouth, his spend falling across his chest, his face, through his fingers. It went on until Sam was writhing, until it turned into one endless thrum of insatiable ecstasy, until he felt like he may be coming his very life out.

Everything was too intense, too hot, too much, too too _too_! His eyes flared wide as he was dragged to hell, flung through heaven, reincarnated a thousand times over, but always as Sam. Sam _for_ Dean. His entire self felt like it burst, he was climaxing, coming until he thought his body must certainly be flying apart, a teeny piece of Sam for each and every Dean so desperately wanting him.

_"God! __**DEAN!**__"_ he finally let the scream rip from him.

Everything went to sparks, flashes, sizzling away until there was nothing left of anything...

"Sammy? I'm sorry." It was just one voice now, just one set of arms wrapped around him. Sam opened his eyes and looked up at his brother who was holding him protectively against his chest. They sat on the floor of the room which was completely empty now but for the two of them. The shame, the sickness, the fear, and the love were all in Dean's face. His soul was bared with nothing left to hide, and he was waiting for it. Waiting for Sam to take a swing, to recoil in disgust, to hate him, to leave him.

Sam heard strange sounds buzzing around his head as he tried to focus, but he couldn't place what they were.

"I tried to stop it. I couldn't control my thoughts, you were too close. I tried. God, I was really trying. I'm sorry Sam, I'm sorry so so sorry," Dean looked like he wanted to die.

Sam on the other hand couldn't seem to get any words out at all. His whole being was so fucked out he didn't think there were any words left in his head. He squeezed Dean's shoulder to try to communicate. "Dean," he said over the whispers around them, but nothing followed it.

"The wires just got crossed in my head somewhere along the way and I… I don't know how to fix it, Sam. I'm sorry. Oh god I'm sorry! M' sorry. M' sorry," Dean held him and said he was sorry in an endless stream, crying words instead of tears.

Suddenly Sam could hear it clearly and understood why things were slowing and his mind slurring. The strange sounds, they were whispers…the words of the spell to return him to the waking world were being chanted.

_Not yet!_ He wanted to cry out, but knew it wouldn't do any good, since Bobby couldn't hear him on the other side. Sam's mind suddenly kicked into overdrive. He grabbed Dean's face with his hands. His brother's eyes were pure self hatred now.

"Dean," he begged, pouring all the love he had in his whole body into the name and fighting to get any other words out. "S'okay. Want you to wake up for me. Please wake up for _ME._"

Dean leaned down and placed a kiss chastely on Sam's cheek and then whispered into his ear.

_Sam's eyes snap open._

The ceiling of Bobby's house slowly swimming into focus, the smell of that god awful tea still in the air, as his body slowly woke. He rolled his head to the side. Dean was lying on the bed across from him, his face slack, body motionless. Tears welled up and rolled down Sam's cheeks before he could stop them.

"Are you with me, son?" Bobby asked from the foot of the bed, a tone of worry evident in his voice.

"I screwed it up, Bobby." His chest hitching, his breathing ragged. "Dean…isn't waking up."

He knew he couldn't go back in Dean's head now, he wouldn't let him in again. Dean had only let him in this time to say…

Bobby frowned, "What'd he tell you?"

"Goodbye."

To Be Continued.


End file.
